</^.^2^«   i^     tf^.^^^*^^^  15^. 


THE    WORKS 

OP 

JOHN    RUSKIN, 

(Separately  and  in  Sets.) 


AN     INQUIRY    INTO    SOITIE    OF    THE 

CONDITIONS  AFFEtriNG  "THE 
STUDY  OF  ARi'HITECTUKE"  IN 
OUK  SCHOOLS.    li!mo,  paper $    10 

AKATRA  PENTEIilCI.  Six  Lectures  on  the 
Elements  of  Sculpture,  given  before  the  University 

of  Oxford,  with  cuts,     lymo,  russet  cloth 50 

DITTO.     With  21  full-page  plates  (two  colored), 
printed  separately.    l:3mo,  russet  cioth      1  00 

ARIADNE  FliORENTINA.  Six  Lectures  on 
Wood  and  Metal  Engraving,  given  before  the  Uni- 
versity of  Oxford,    1','nio,  cloth.    Complete  with 

Appendix.     Wmo,  russet  cloth 50 

DITTO.    With  12  full-page  plates,  printed  sepa- 
rately.     12mo,  russet  cloth. .   100 

ARROWS  OF  THE  CHACE.  A  Collection 
o'  Letters  from  1840  to  1880.  Edited  by  an  Oxford 
Pupil.    2  vols,  bound  in  one.      Plate.     12mo,  cloth  1  00 

ART  CUIiTURE.  A  Hand-Book  of  Art  Tech- 
nicalities and  Criticisms,  t<elected  from  the  Works 
of  John  Ruskin,  and  arranged  and  supplemented 
by  Kev.  W.  H.  Piatt,  for  the  use  of  the  Intelligent 
Traveler  and  Art  Student,  with  a  new  Glossary  of 
Art  Terms  and  an  Alphabetical  and  Chronological 
List  of  Artists.    With  illustrations.    12mo,  russet 

cloth 1  50 

"  Mr.  Piatt  has  worked  out  an  idea  so  striking 
for  its  attractiveness  and  utility  that,  perceiving 
it.  we  at  once  go  to  work  wondering  that  some- 
body else  had  not  executed  it  before  him.  He  has 
gone  over  the  vast  and  superb  areas  of  John  Rus- 
kin's  Writings,  and  cutting  out  one  block  here  and 
another  tiiere,  as  it  has  suited  his  purpose,  has  put 


all  these  parts  tfigether  airain  Into  a  literary  mosaic, 
constiluting  a  clear  and  harmonious  system  of  art 
principles,  wherein  Kiiskin  all  the  while  is  the 
teacher.  He  has  rediiceil  Ku.-kin  to  a  code.  On 
the  whole,  we  see  n^it  what  this  book  lacks  of 
beinj?  a  complete  text-book  of  the(iosj>el  of  Art 
according?  to  St.  John  Kuskiu."— t'ArisYran  Union. 

ART  OFENCiliAND,  Leetnrcsplvcn  in  Oxford 
durinff  the  st-ccmd  tenure  of  tlieShide  Professor- 
ship.   Parts  1  to  VI.  complete     1 2nio,  russet  cloth      50 

ART  OF  ENGLAND,    limo.  cloth  extra.  100 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY     -    PR.ETERITA. 
OUTLINES  OF  ycKNKS  AND  THOIGIITS,  per- 
haps worthy  of  memory,  lu  MY  PAST  LIKE.    By 
John  Ruskin,  LL.D. 
Vol     I.    (rhapter^l  to  12.)    8ro,  cloth  extra. ...  3  00 
Vol.11.    ((■hai)ter»I  to  ID  )    8vo.  paper,  each  .. .      25 
Vol.     I     (Chapters  1  to  1-J  )    1 '..'mo,  cloth 150 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  OF  Rl'KKIN.  A  BIBLI- 
OUHAPIUCAL  LI.><T,  arranged  in  chronological 
order,  of  the  published  wrilinjcs  in  Prose  and 
Verse  of  John  Uuskin,  from  IKM  to  the  present 
time  (October,  1S78.)    13mo,  russet  cloth 50 

BIRTHD.VY  BOOK.  A  Selection  of  ThouRhts, 
Mottoesand  Apliorlsms  for  Every  l>iiy  In  tlie  Year, 
from  the  works  of  Jons  UrsKt.v,  LL.D.  Collected 
and  arranged  by  M.  A  B  and  (}.  A.  With  a  new 
and  fine  portrait  of  Mr.  Ruskin.  Scpiare  12mo, 
cloth,  extra  beveled  boards  gilt  edges.   1  50 

CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE,  THE.  Three 
Le<tures  on  Work,  Traffic,  and  War.  l-'mo,  rus.set 
cloth 50 

DELTA  LION.  Collected  Studies  on  the  Lapse 
of  Waves  and  Life  of  Stones.    Vol.  L    (Parts  1  to 

6.)    Plates.    12rao,  russet  cloth ..     ..     125 

DITTO.  Vol.11.  (Parts  7  and  8.)  Plates.  12mo, 
russet  cloth. 75 

EAGLF/S  NEST,  THE.  Ten  I^ectnres  on  the 
Relation  of  Natural  Science  to  Art,  piven  before 
the  University  of  Oxford.    Ivlmo,  russet  cloth.  .   .      50 

ele:tients  of  draw^ing,  the.   in 

Three  Letters  to  Beiiinncrs.      With  illu.stratlons 

drawn  by  the  author,      l^imo,  russet  cloth 50 

ELEIWENTS  OF  PERSPECTIVE,  THE. 

Arranged  for  the  use  of  Schools.     l-.;mo,  russet 

cloth 50 

ETHICS  OF  THE  DIST,  THE.  Ten  Lec- 
tures to  Little  Housewives  on  tlie  Elements  of 
Crystallization.    12mo,  russet  cloth 50 


FORS  rLAV^IGERA.    Lettersto  the  Workmen 
and  Laborers  of  Great  Britain  -Complete. 
Vols.  1  and  2.  -2  vols,  in  one.    ISmo,  russet  cloth .     1  00 
Vols.  3  and  4—2  vols,  in  one.    12mo,  russet  cloth. .  100 
Vols.  5  and  0.  —2  vols,  in  one.    12mo,  russet  cloth..  1  00 
Vols.  7 and  8.— 2  vols,  in  one.    12mo,  russet  cloth..  100 
DITTO.    8  vols,  in  four,  11  fuH-pa?e  plates.    12nio 
russet  cloth. .   .     '  5  00 

FRONDES  AGRESTES.  Readings  on  "Mo- 
dern Painters."  Chosen  at  her  pleasure  by  the 
author's  friend,  the  Younger  Lady  of  the  Thwaite, 
Coniston.    12mo,  russet  cloth  50 

KING  OF  THE  GOLDEN  RIVER,  THE. 

Or,  The  Black  Brothers.    A  Lejjend  of  Stiria.    A 
Fairy  Tale.    Illustrated.    12mo,  cloth  extra 50 

liAWS  OF  FESOLE,  THE.  A  Familiar  Treat- 
ise  on  the  Elementary  Principles  and  Practice  of 
Drawing  and  Painting  as  determined  by  the  Tuscan 
Masters,  with  numerous  plates.    Arranged  for  the 

use  of  Schools.    12m(>,  russet  cloth ..      50 

DITTO     With  12  plates.    12mo,  russet  cloth 1  00 

LECTrRES  ON  ARCHITECTURE  AND 
PAINTING.    Delivered  at  Edmburgh.    12mo, 

russet  cloth ...  50 

DITTO.    With  15  plates,  full-page,  printed  sepa- 
rately.   l2mo,  russet  cloth 100 

LECTURES  ON  ART.  Delivered  before  the 
University  of  O.xford  in  Hilary  Term.  12mo,  rus- 
set cloth : 50 

LETTERS  AND  ADVICE  TO  YOUNG 
GIRLS  AND  VOLNG  LADIES  ON 
DRESS,  EDUCATION,  JTIARRIAGE, 
THEIR  SPHERE,  INFLt  ENCE,  ^VO- 
IWEN'S  AVOKK,  AVOUEN'S  RIGHTS, 
Etc.,  Etc.     12mo,  extra  gilt,  cloth 50 

LOVE'S  MEINE.  Lectures  on  Greek  and  Eng- 
lish Birds,  given  before  the  University  of  Oxford. 
12mo,  russet  cloth 50 

ITIISCELLANEA.  Containing  Catalogue  of 
Turners  Drawings  as  re\ised  and  cast  up  into  pro- 
gressive groups,  etc.  Notes  on  some  ot  the  I'rin- 
cipal  Pictures  in  Royal  Academy— Guide  to  the 
Principal  Pictures  of  the  Academy  of  Venice- 
Michael  Angelo  and  Tintoret--Inaugural  Address 
at  Cambridge— Opening  of  Crvsta!  Palace— Fiction, 
Fair  and  Foul— Giotto  and  His  Works— Prout  and 
Hunt— Studies  of  Mountain  and  Cloud  Form- 
King  of  Golden  River— Sheepfolds.  2 vols.  Russet' 
cloth,  each.     .. 100 


MODERN  PAINTERS.     5  vols.     Bound  in  4 

vols.     Complete   with  all  Plates  and  Wood  Cut*. 

Vol.  1.— Pari  1.    General  I'rimiples.   Part  2.  Truth- 

Vol.  2.— Part  a.    Of  Iclea-s  tii  IJeauty. 

Vol.  3.— Part  4.    Of  Mauy  Thinjrs. 

Vol.4.— Parts.    Of  Mountain  Beauty. 

Vol.  5.— Parte.  Leaf  Ueauiy.  I'art  T.  Of  Cloud 
Beauty  Parts.  Ideas  ot  Relation  of  Invenllou, 
Formal.  Part  9.  Ideaj«  of  Kilation  of  Inven- 
tion, Spiritual.     4  vol.x.,  russet  cloth |6  00 

DITTO.  With  all  the  Plates  and  Woodcuts,  In  box, 
5  Fols.,  K'mo,  extra  cloth 10  00 

DITTO.  With  all  the  Plates  and  Woodcute,  in  box. 
5  vols.,  12mo,  half  calf 17  00 

DITTO.    With  all  the  W<x>dcuts,  5  vols,  bound  in 

3  vols.,  riiiio,  russet  cloth 3  50 

inODKRN   PAINTERS.      People's  edition.  5 

vols,  in  2.     Neat  blue  cloth 2  00 

iTIODERN    PAINTERS.        EXTRA    VOIj. 

Beinp  the  reissue  of  Volume  II.  of  this  work.  Re- 
vised and  rearranged  with  criticAl  notes  by  the 

author.     12mo,  rus,set  cloth SO 

DITTO.     12mo,  extra  cloth 7S 

DITTO.     12mo,  preen  cloth  50 

raORNINGS  IN  FLORENCE.  Beln»r  simple 
studies  on  Christian  Art  lor  English  Travelers. 
Santa  Croce— The  (.iolden  Gate— Before  the  Soldan 
—The  Vaulted  Roof— The  Strait  Gate.  12mo,  rus- 
set cloth "'0 

IVUNERA  P1E.VERIS.  Six  Essays  on  the 
Elements  of  Political  Economy.  12mo,  russet 
cloth 50 

NOTES  ON  THE  CONSTRUCTION  OF 
SIIEEPFOLDS  ;    or.   Visible  Churches.    {Set 

OITR      F.VTHERS      H.WE      TOLD      IS. 

Sketches  of  the  History  of  Christendom  for  Boys 
and  Girls  who  have  been  held  at  Its  Fonts.  Four 
full-page  plates.    Kusset  cloth,  each 1  Oit 

PE.\RLS  FOR  YOITNG  LADIES.    From  the 
later  works  of  John   Ruskin.     t^elected  and  ar- 
ranged by  Louisa  C.  Tuthill.    12mo,  russet  cloth  .  1  00 
DITTO.    Extra  gilt  cloth      125 

PLE.ISCRES  OF  ENGL.\ND.  Lectures 
given  at  Oxford  by  John  Ruskin.  viz.  :  Pleasures 
of  Learning  ;  Pleasures  of  Faith  :  Pleasures  of 
Deed;  Pleasures  of  Fancy.    12mo,  boards 60 


POEOTS,  THE  OLD  WATER  AVHEEl. 
AND  OTHER  POEMS.  By  John  Ruskin. 
Collected  and  edited  from  their  original "  Annual  " 

publication.    l:imo,  russet  cloth $    50 

DITTO,  ditto,  with  an  etched  frontispiece.  Extra 
gilt,  cloth 1  25 

POETRY  OF  ARCHITECTURE,  THE. 

Cottage,  Villa,  etc.,  to  which  is  added  Suggestions 
on  Works  of  Art.  With  numerous  illustrations. 
ByKataPhusin.  (Nomde  Plume  of  John  Ruskin.) 
l^mo,  russet  cloth 50 

POIilTICA  I.  ECONOMY  OF  ART,  THE  1 
or,  A  JOY  FOREVER.  Being  the  sub- 
stance of  two  lectures  (with  additions)  deliv- 
ered at  Manchester.     12mo,  russet  cloth 50 

PRECIOUS  THOUGHTS  :  Moral  and  Re- 
ligious. Gathered  from  the  Works  of  John  Rus- 
kin, A.  M.  By  Mrs.  L.  C.  TuthiU.  13mo,  russet 
<^loth 100 

DITTO,  ditto.    Extra  gilt,  cloth 125 

PRE-RAPHAEIilTISM.     12mo,  russet  cloth      50 

PRAETERITA.  See  Ruskin's  Autobiog- 
raphy.   Vol.1.    8vo,  cloth, 3  00 

PROSERPINA.    Studies  of  Wayside  Flower.s 
while  the  air  was  yet  pure  among  the  Alps  and  in 
the  Scotland  and  England  which  my  father  knew 
Vol.  I.    (Parts  1  to  6.)    Plates.   12mo,  russet  cloth  1  25 
Vol  II.    (Parts  7,  8,  and  9.)  Plates.    13mo,  russet 
cloth 1  00 

<IUEEN  OF  THE  AIR,  THE.  Being  a 
Study  of  the  Greek  Myths  of  Cloud  and  Storm. 
12mo,  russet  cloth 50 

ST.  MARK'S  REST.  THE  HISTORY 
OF  VENICE.  Written  for  the  help  of  the 
Few  Travelers  who  still  care  for  her  Monuments. 
Parts  I.,  II.,  and  III.,  with  two  Supplements. 
12mo,  russet  cloth 50 

SEl,ECTIONS   FROM  THE   WRITINGS 
OF  JOHN  RUSKIN.     12mo,  russet  cloth. . ..      75 
DITTO,  ditto.    32mo,  extra  cloth ...  l  oo 

SESAME  AND  LII.IES.  Three  Lectures  (on 
Books,  Women,  etc.)  1.  Of  Kings'  Treasuries.  2. 
Of  Queens'  Gardens.    3.  Of  the  Mystery  of  Life. 

]2mo,  blue  cloth, 50 

New  Edition.     12mo,  thick  paper,  russet  clotli,!!.'      75 
New  Edition.    12mo,  thick  paper,  ex.  cloth, 1  00 


8 

SEVEN  LAMPS   OF  ARCHITECTUKE. 

With  copies  of  illustrations  drawn  by  the  author. 

14  full-page  plates.    12mo,  ex.  cloth »1  25 

DITTO,  ditto.    13mo,  russet  cloth V") 

DITTO.     Cheap    edition,    without   plates.    12mo, 

green  cloth °" 

DITTO.    People's  edition.    Neat  blue  cloth 50 

STONES  OF  VENK'E.  Vol.  1.  Foundations. 
Vol.  2.  Sea  Stories.    Vol.  3.    The  Fall.    3  vols,  in 

two.    12nio,  russet  clot*! 1  °" 

DITTO,  ditto.    3  vols,  in  two.    54  Plates  3  00 

3  vols,  in  box.    Plates,  l2mo,  ex.  cloth 4  50 

DITTO.    3  vols.    Plates,  12mo,  J4  calf 7  50 

DITTO      People's  edition.     3  vols,  in  one.     Neat 

blue  cloth ^  ^ 

STORin    CLOl  D    OF    THE    19tli    CEN- 

TURY.    By  John  Ruskin.    12mo,  bds 50 

THE  TRUE  AND  THE  BEAUTIFUL 

IN  NATURE,  ART,  MORALS  AND 

RELICwION.      Selected    from   the^Vorks   of 

John  Ruskin,  A.  >I.    With  a  notice  of  the  author 

by  Mrs.  L.  C.  Tuthill.    12mo,  russet  cloth..   .  .  1  00 

DITTO,  ditto,  with  Portrait.  ,12ido,  extra  cloth 1  25 

THE  TWO  PATHS.  Being  Lectures  on  Art, 
and  its  Application  to  Decoration  and  Manufac- 
ture.   With  steel  plates  and  cuts.    12mo,  russet 

cloth ^^ 

DITTO.    Without  plates ^^ 

TIITIE  AND  TIDE  BY  WEARE  AND 
TYNE.  Twenty-five  Letters  to  a  Workingman 
of  Sunderland  on  the  Laws  of  work.    12mo,  rus- 

set  cloth °^ 

**  UNTO  THIS  LAST."  Four  Essays  on  the 
First  Principles  of  Political  Economy.    12mo,  rus- 

set  cloth ^ 

VAL  D'ARNO.  Ten  Lectures  on  the  Tuscan 
Art  directly  Antecedent  to  Florentine  year  of 
Victories.    13  plates.    12mo,  russet  cloth —  1  00 


RUSKIN'S  COMPLETE  WORKS. 

With  all  the  Wood  Engravings,  and  With  and  With- 
out Plates.  There  are  277  FULL  PAGE  PLATES 
In  the  complete  edition.  Printed  on  pl£^te  paper. 
Some  of  them  in  colors,  as  follows : 

RUSKIN'S  WOKKS.  Uniformly  hound  in 
13  volumes.  Elegant  style.  223 full-page  Plates, 
colored  and  plain,  on  plate  paper.  12mo,  extra 
cloth ...S1800 

DITTO,  ditto,  with  all  the  plates.    12mo,  \4  calf. .  36  00 

Ditto,  ditto,  without  plates.  12  vols.  12mo,  extra 
cloth, 12  00 

RUSKIN'S  WORKS.  (Second  Series).  Addi- 
tional Writings,  completing  his  Works.  Uniform 
in  size  and  binding  with  the  12-volume  edition. 

6  vols.,  12nio,  cloth  extra 1"  50 

6  vols.,  with  all  the  plates,  12mo,  cloth  extra,  10  50 
6  vols.,  with  all  the  plates,  12mo,  14  calf, . .        21  00 

DITTO,  including  both  series.  Wood  engravings, 
18  vols.,  extra  cloth, 19  50 

DITTO,  including  both  series.  Plates  and  Wood 
engravings,  18  vols. ,  extra  cloth, 28  50 

DITTO,  including  both  series.  Plates  and  Wood 
engravings.    20  vols.,  extra  cloth, 30  00 

DITTO,  including  both  series.  Plates  and  Wood 
engravings.    19  vols.,  14  calf, 58  00 

DITTO,  including  both  series.  Plates  and  Wood 
engravings.    20  vols.,  i^  calf, 60  00 


CHOICEWORKSOFJOHN  RUSKIN 

A'l  elegant  octavo  edition,  including  Modern  Paint- 
ers. 5  vols.,  Stones  of  Venice,  3  vols.,  and  Seven 
Lamps,  1  vol.  With  very  tine  copies  of  all  the 
Plates  and  Wood  engravings  of  the  earliest  Lon- 
don editions. 

9  vols.,8vo,  cloth, *5  00 

9  vols.,  1^  calf 63  00 

9  vols.,  full  calf, 72  00 

suitable;  fob  presents. 

Kusldii's  Beauties. 
THE  TRUE  AND  BEAUTIFUL,.    ^  3  vols. 
PRECIOUS  THOUGHTS.                     I    ^^^     ^  ^'^ 
CHOICE  SELECTIONS.                       )  ex.  clo. 
DITTO.  3  vols,  in  box,  1^  calf, 7  50 


10 

Kuskin's  Popular  Volumes. 
CROTTN  OF  WIIiD  OL.IVE.  \    4  vols  in 
SESAME  AND  LILIES.  f  box, 

QUEEN  OF  THE  AIR.  f         extra      $3  50 

ETHICS  OF  THE  DUST.         '         cloth. 

Euskin  on  Art. 
LECTURES  ON  ART.  )  4  vols 

TWO  PATHS.-PLATES.  (  ^^^   g  5^ 

EAGLE'S  NEST.  I  extra 

POLITICAL  ECONOMY  OF  ART     ;  cloth. 

DITTO,  2  vols  in  box,  14  calf 7  00 

Kuskin  on  Architecture. 
POETRY    OF    ARCHITECTURE  -  1         4 

PLATES.  vols. 

SEVEN    LAMPS     OF    ARCHITEC-  in 

TURE— PLATES.  V     box, 


LECTURES  ON  ARCHITECTURE  ex 

AND   PAINTING-PLATES  ""^^^fm 

STONES  OF  VENICE  (Selections.)  J 

3  vols,  in  box,  H  calf 7  50 

Ruskin  on  Drawing,  Etc. 
ELEMENTS  OF  DRAWING.  \  4  vols. 

ELEMENTS  OF   PERSPECTIVE.  (_  ^^'^^  .^  ^ 


LAWS  OF  FESOLE-PLATES.  (  extra 

FRONDES  AGRESTES.  '  cloth. 

2  vols,  in  box,  %  calf "00 

THE   FOLLOniXG    BEAUTIFUL  VOLUMES, 

BEING    SELECTIONS    FROX 

RUSKIN' 8  WORKS. 

In  Neat  12mo.  Volumes.    Cloth,  Gilt  Extra. 

ART    CULTURE.    With    Illustrations,    cloth  ^ 
gxt,r3. *  *^ 

LETTERS    AND    ADVICE   TO    YOUNG 
LADIES.    Cloth  extra »> 

PEARLS  FOR  YOUNG  LADIES.  Cloth  ex- 
tra.   ^  ^^ 

PRECIOUS  THOUGHTS.    Cloth  extra 1  25 


11 

CHOICE  SEIiECTIOiNS.    Cloth  extra SI  00 

XKUE  AM>  BEAUTIFUL..  Cloth  extra..  1  25 
KUSKIN'S      BIKTHDAY     BOOK.    Cloth 

extra 1  50 

RUSKIX'S  AUTOBIOORAPHV  (PRAE 

TERITA.)    Vol.  1.     Plate,  8vo,  cloth  extra... .  3  00 

ALSO- WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

BUSKIN'S  ALiEXAIVDER'S  ROADSIDE 

'^ONOS  OF  TUSCANY.    80  Full  Page  Plates. 

8vo,  cloth  extra 3  50 

BUSKIN'S  ALEXANDER'S  STORY    OF 
IDA.     With  a  Beautiful  Portrait.    12mo,  cloth 

extra 75 

DITTO,  Ditto.    With   Portrait.    4to,  cloth  extra,  1  50 

The  following  Tolumes  are  valuable   as 

READING  BOOKS, 

and  are  specially  recommended  for  use  to  HIGH 
SCHOOLS  AND  LADIES'  SEMINARIES. 

THE  TRUE  AND  BEAUTIFUIi.  Se- 
lected from  Ruskin's  Works.    I'-hno,  russet  cloth.  1  00 

ABT  CULTURE.  Selected  from  Ruskin's 
■  Works.    12mo,  russet  cloth 1  .50 

PRECIOUS  THOUGHTS.  Selected 
from  Ruskin's  Works.    12mo,  russet  cloth .  1  00 

CHOICE  SELECTIONS.  Selected  from 
Ruskin's  Works.    l'3rao,  russet  cloth 75 

SESAIWE  AND  LILIES.  12mo,  russet 
cloth. 75 

LECTURES  TO  LITTLE  HOUSE- 
WIVES. (Ethics  of  the  Dust).  12mo,  russet 
cloth 50 

■***  Copies  of  these  volumes  will  be  sent  for  examination, 
with  reference  to  introduction,  free,  by  mail,  on  receipt  of 
tivo-thirds  of  the  printed  price. 


Elegant  8vo  Edltian 

OP 

RUSKIN'S  CHOICE  WORKS, 

{But  few  copies  remain  of  this  edition.) 

WIODERN  PAINTERS.  By  John  Ruskin. 
New  and  beautiful  edition.  Containing  fine  copies 
of  all  the  plates,  fST)  and  wood  engravings  of  the 
original  London  edition. 

Vol.  1.— Part  1.  General  Principles.  Part  2.  Truth. 
Vol.  2.— Part  3.    Of  Ideas  of  Beauty. 
Vol.  3.— Part  4.    Of  Many  Things. 
Vol.  4.— Part  5.    Of  Mountain  Beauty. 
Vol.  5.— Part  6.    Leaf  Beauty.     P^rt  7.     Of  Cloud 
Beauty.    Part  8.    ideas  of  Relation  of  Invention, 
Formal.    Part  9.    Ideas  of  Relation  of  Invention, 
Spiritual. 

5  vols.,  8vo,  extra  cloth 30  00 

5  vols.,  8vo,  K  calf 40  00 

5  vols.,  8vo,  full  calf 45  00 

STONES     OF     VENICE.      By   John   Ruskin. 
New  and  beautiful  edition.    Containing  fine  copies 
of  all  the  plates,  (54)  colored  and  plain,  and  wood 
engravings  of  the  original  London  edition. 
Vol.  1.— The  Foundations. 
Vol.  2.— The  Sea  Stories. 
Vol.  3.— The  Fall. 

3  vols.,  8vo,  extra  cloth 18  00 

3  vols.,  8vo,  %  calf 24  00 

3  vols.,  8vo,  full  calf 27  00 

PLATES  to  ditto  separately,  including  fine  copies 
of  all  the  plates  in  London  edition.     (54)  colored 

and  plain.    8vo,  extra  cloth 6  00 

SEVEN  IiAinPS  OF  ARCHITECTURE. 
By  John  Ruskin.  New  and  beautiful  edition,  con- 
taining fine  copies  of  all  the  plates  ( 14)  of  the  origi- 
ginal  London  edition.  Lamp  of  Sacrifice.  Lamp 
of  Truth.  Lamp  of  Power.  Lamp  of  Beauty.  Lamp 
of  Life.    Lamp  of  Memory.    Lamp  of  Obedience, 

extra  cloth, 6  00 

54  calf 8  00 

full  calf 9  00 

MISS  ALEXANDER'S  WORKS. 

ROADSIDE    SONGS    OF    TUSCANY.      By 

Miss  Fraucesca  Alexander,  with  20  full  page  plates, 
from  drawings  of  the  author.  Edited  by  John  Rus- 
kin.   8vo,  cloth  extra 3  50 

DITTO,  DITTO.    20  Plates,  %  morocco 6  50 

THE  STORY  OF  IDA.  EPITAPH  ON 
AN  ETRURIAN  TOMR.  By  Prancesca 
Alexander,  with  Preface  by  John  Ruskin.  Illus- 
trated, with  a  Beautiful  Portrait. 

12mo,  laid  paper,  cloth  extra 0  75 

4to,  heavy  paper,  cloth  extra 1  50 


THE 


PLEASURES  OF  ENGLAND. 


%ttmxts  Qihtn  in  ©xfortr* 


BY 


JOHN    RUSKIN,   D.C.L.,   LL.D., 

HONORARY    STUDENT    OF   CHRIST    CHURCH,   AND    HONORARY   FELLOW  OF 
CORPUS-CHRISTI    COLLEGE, 


DURING  HIS 


SECOND   TENURE  OF  THE  SLADE  PROFESSORSHIP. 


NEW  YORK : 
JOHN    WILEY    AND     SONS. 


//O  CJSrVERSITY  OF  C'JTT^OnM 

^^  SAiNTA  BAK. 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURE  I. 

PAGB 

The  Pleasures  of  Learning.       Bertha  to  Osburga  ....     5 

LECTURE   IL 
The  Pleasures  of  Faith.      Alfred  to  the  Confessor  ....  31 

LECTURE   IIL 
The  Pleasures  of  Deed.       Afred  to  Coeur  de  Lion  ...  61 

LECTURE   IV. 
The  Pleasures  of  Fancy.     Coeur  de  Lion  to  Elizabeth   .  .  91 


LECTURE    I. 


THE    PLEASURES    OF    LEARNING. 

'Bertha  to  Osburga. 


LECTURE  I. 
THE   PLEASURES   OF   LEARNING. 


BERTHA   TO    OSBURGA. 

IN  the  short  review  of  the  present  state  of  English 
Art,  given  you  last  year,  I  left  necessarily  many 
points  untouched,  and  others  unexplained.  The  sev- 
enth lecture,  which  I  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  read 
aloud,  furnished  you  with  some  of  the  corrective  state- 
ments of  which,  whether  spoken  or  not,  it  was 
extremely  desirable  that  you  should  estimate  the  bal- 
ancing weight.  These  I  propose  in  the  present  course 
farther  to  illustrate,  and  to  arrive  with  you  at,  I  hope, 
a  just  —  you  would  not  wish  it  to  be  a  flattering  — 
estimate  of  the  conditions  of  our  English  artistic  life, 
past  and  present,  in  order  that  with  due  allowance  for 
them  we  may  determine,  with  some  security,  what 
those  of  us  who  have  faculty  ought  to  do,  and  those 
who  have  sensibility,  to  admire. 

2.  In  thus  rightly  doing  and  feeling,  you  will  find 
summed  a  wider  duty,  and  granted  a  greater  power, 

7 


8  The  Pleasures  of  Learning. 

than  the  moral  philosophy  at  this  moment  current  with 
you  has  ever  conceived ;  and  a  prospect  opened  to  you 
besides,  of  such  a  Future  for  England  as  you  may  both 
hopefully  and  proudly  labour  for  with  your  hands,  and 
those  of  you  who  are  s'pared  to  the  ordinary  term  of 
human  life,  even  see  with  your  eyes,  when  all  this 
tumult  of  vain  avarice  and  idle  pleasure,  into  which  you 
have  been  plunged  at  birth,  shall  have  passed  into  its 
appointed  perdition. 

3.  I  wish  that  you  would  read  for  introduction  to  the 
lectures  I  have  this  year  arranged  for  you,  that  on  the 
Future  of  England,  which  I  gave  to  the  cadets  at 
Woolwich  in  the  first  year  of  my  Professorship  here, 
1869;  and  which  is  now  placed  as  the  main  conclusion 
of  the  "  Crown  of  Wild  Olive "  :  and  with  it,  very 
attentively,  the  close  of  my  inaugural  lecture  given 
here ;  for  the  matter,  no  less  than  the  tenor  of  which, 
I  was  reproved  by  all  my  friends,  as  irrelevant  and  ill- 
judged  ;  —  which,  nevertheless,  is  of  all  the  pieces  of 
teaching  I  have  ever  given  from  this  chair,  the  most 
pregnant  and  essential  to  whatever  studies,  whether  of 
Art  or  Science,  you  may  pursue,  in  this  place  or  else- 
where, during  your  lives. 

The  opening  words  of  that  passage  I  will  take  leave 
to  read  to  you  again,  —  for  they  must  still  be  the 
ground  of  whatever  help  I  can  give  you,  worth  your 
acceptance. 

"  There  is  a  destiny  now  possible  to  us  —  the  highest 


Bertha  io   Osburga.  9 

ever  set  before  a  nation  to  be  accepted  or  refused.  We 
are  still  undegcnerate  in  race  :  a  race  mingled  of  the 
best  northern  blood.  We  are  not  yet  dissolute  in  tem- 
per, but  still  have  the  firmness  to  govern,  and  the  grace 
to  obey.  We  have  been  taught  a  religion  of  pure 
mercy,  which  we  must  either  now  finally  betray,  or 
learn  to  defend  by  fulfilling.  And  we  are  rich  in  an 
inheritance  of  honour,  bequeathed  to  us  through  a 
thousand  years  of  noble  history,  which  it  should  be  our 
daily  thirst  to  increase  with  splendid  avarice ;  so  that 
Englishmen,  if  it  be  a  sin  to  covet  honour,  should  be 
the  most  offending  souls  alive.  Within  the  last  few 
years  we  have  had  the  laws  of  natural  science  opened 
to  us  with  a  rapidity  which  has  been  blinding  by  its 
brightness  ;  and  means  of  transit  and  communication 
given  to  us,  which  have  made  but  one  kingdom  of  the 
habitable  globe. 

"One  kingdom;  —  but  who  is  to  be  its  king.?  Is 
there  to  be  no  king  in  it,  think  you,  and  every  man  to 
do  that  which  is  right  in  his  own  eyes }  Or  only  kings 
of  terror,  and  the  obscene  empires  of  Mammon  and 
Belial }  Or  will  you,  youths  of  England,  make  your 
country  again  a  royal  throne  of  kings  ;  a  sceptred  isle ; 
for  all  the  world  a  source  of  light,  a  centre  of  peace ; 
mistress  of  Learning  and  of  the  Arts  ;  —  faithful  guard- 
ian of  great  memories  in  the  midst  of  irreverent  and 
ephemeral  visions  —  faithful  servant  of  time-tried  prin- 
ciples, under   temptation  from  fond  experiments    and 


lo  The  Pleasures  of  Learning. 

licentious  desires ;  and  amidst  the  cruel  and  clamorous 
jealousies  of  the  nations,  worshipped  in  her  strange 
valour,  of  goodwill  towards  men  ? " 

The  fifteen  years  that  have  passed  since  I  spoke 
these  words  must,  I  think,  have  convinced  some  of  my 
immediate  hearers  that  the  need  for  such  an  appeal 
was  more  pressing  than  they  then  imagined;  —  while 
they  have  also  more  and  more  convinced  me  myself 
that  the  ground  I  took  for  it  was  secure,  and  that  the 
youths  and  girls  now  entering  on  the  duties  of  active 
life  are  able  to  accept  and  fulfil  the  hope  I  then  held 
out  to  them. 

In  which  assurance  I  ask  them  to-day  to  begin  the 
examination  with  me,  very  earnestly,  of  the  question 
laid  before  you  in  that  seventh  of  my  last  year's  lec- 
tures, whether  London,  as  it  is  now,  be  indeed  the 
natural,  and  therefore  the  heaven-appointed  outgrowth 
of  the  inhabitation,  these  1800  years,  of  the  valley  of 
the  Thames  by  a  progressively  instructed  and  disci- 
plined people ;  or  if  not,  in  what  measure  and  manner 
the  aspect  and  spirit  of  the  great  city  may  be  possibly 
altered  by  your  acts  and  thoughts. 

In  my  introduction  to  the  Economist  of  Xenophon  I 
said  that  every  fairly  educated  European  boy  or  girl 
ought  to  learn  the  history  of  five  cities,  —  Athens, 
Rome,  Venice,  Florence,  and  London  ;  that  of  London 
including,  or  at  least  compelling  in  parallel  study,  some 
knowledge  also  of  the  history  of  Paris. 


Bertha  to   Osburga.  ii 

A  few  words  are  enough  to  explain  the  reasons  for 
this  choice.  The  history  of  Athens,  rightly  told,  in- 
cludes all  that  need  be  known  of  Greek  religion  and 
arts ;  that  of  Rome,  the  victory  of  Christianity  over 
Paganism ;  those  of  Venice  and  Florence  sum  the 
essential  facts  respecting  the  Christian  arts  of  Paint- 
ing, Sculpture,  and  Music ;  and  that  of  London,  in  her 
sisterhood  with  Paris,  the  development  of  Christian 
Chivalry  and  Philosophy,  with  their  exponent  art  of 
Gothic  architecture. 

Without  the  presumption  of  forming  a  distinct  de- 
sign, I  yet  hoped  at  the  time  when  this  division  of 
study  was  suggested,  with  the  help  of  my  pupils,  to 
give  the  outlines  of  their  several  histories  during  my 
work  in  Oxford.  Variously  disappointed  and  arrested, 
alike  by  difficulties  of  investigation  and  failure  of 
strength,  I  may  yet  hope  to  lay  down  for  you,  begin- 
ning with  your  own  metropolis,  some  of  the  lines  of 
thought  in  following  out  which  such  a  task  might  be 
most  effectively  accomplished. 

You  observe  that  I  speak  of  architecture  as  the  chief 
exponent  of  the  feelings  both  of  the  French  and  Eng- 
lish races.  Together  with  it,  however,  most  important 
evidence  of  character  is  given  by  the  illumination  of 
manuscripts,  and  by  some  forms  of  jewellery  and  met- 
allurgy :  and  my  purpose  in  this  course  of  lectures  is 
to  illustrate  by  all  these  arts  the  phases  of  national 
character  which  it  is  impossible  that  historians  should 


1 2  The  Pleasures  of  Learning. 

estimate,  or  even  observe,  with  accuracy,  unless  they 
are  cognizant  of  excellence  in  the  aforesaid  modes  of 
structural  and  ornamental  craftsmanship. 

In  one  respect,  as  indicated  by  the  title  chosen  for 
this  course,  I  have  varied  the  treatment  of  their  subject 
from  that  adopted  in  all  my  former  books.  Hitherto,  I 
have  always  endeavoured  to  illustrate  the  personal 
temper  and  skill  of  the  artist ;  holding  the  wishes  or 
taste  of  his  spectators  at  small  account,  and  saying  of 
Turner  you  ought  to  like  him,  and  of  Salvator,  you 
ought  not,  etc.,  etc.,  without  in  the  least  considering 
what  the  genius  or  instinct  of  the  spectator  might  other- 
wise demand,  or  approve.  But  in  the  now  attempted 
sketch  of  Christian  history,  I  have  approached  every 
question  from  the  people's  side,  and  examined  the  na- 
ture, not  of  the  special  faculties  by  which  the  work 
was  produced,  but  of  the  general  instinct  by  which  it 
was  asked  for,  and  enjoyed.  Therefore  I  thought  the 
proper  heading  for  these  papers  should  represent  them 
as  descriptive  of  the  Pleasures  of  England,  rather  than 
of  its  Arts. 

And  of  these  pleasures,  necessarily,  the  leading  one 
was  that  of  Learning,  in  the  sense  of  receiving  instruc- 
tion ;  —  a  pleasure  totally  separate  from  that  of  finding 
out  things  for  yourself,  —  and  an  extremely  sweet  and 
sacred  pleasure,  when  you  know  how  to  seek  it,  and 
receive. 

On  which  I  am  the  more  disposed,  and  even  com- 


Bertha  to   Osburga.  13 

pelled,  here  to  insist,  because  your  modern  ideas  of 
Development  imply  that  you  must  all  turn  out  what 
you  are  to  be,  and  find  out  what  you  are  to  know,  for 
yourselves,  by  the  inevitable  operation  of  your  anterior 
affinities  and  inner  consciences  :  —  whereas  the  old  idea 
of  education  was  that  the  baby  material  of  you,  how- 
ever accidentally  or  inevitably  born,  was  at  least  to  be 
by  external  force,  and  ancestral  knowledge,  bred ;  and 
treated  by  its  Fathers  and  Tutors  as  a  plastic  vase,  to 
be  shaped  or  mannered  as  they  chose,  not  as  it  chose, 
and  filled,  when  its  form  was  well  finished  and  baked, 
with  sweetness  of  sound  doctrine,  as  with  Hyola  honey, 
or  Arabian  spikenard. 

Without  debating  how  far  these  two  modes  of  acquir- 
ing knowledge  —  finding  out,  and  being  told  —  may 
severally  be  good,  and  in  perfect  instruction  combined, 
I  have  to  point  out  to  you  that,  broadly,  Athens,  Rome, 
and  Florence  are  self-taught,  and  internally  developed ; 
while  all  the  Gothic  races,  without  any  exception,  but 
especially  those  of  London  and  Paris,  are  afterwards 
taught  by  these ;  and  had,  therefore,  when  they  chose 
to  accept  it,  the  delight  of  being  instructed,  without 
trouble  or  doubt,  as  fast  as  they  could  read  or  imitate  ; 
and  brought  forward  to  the  point  where  their  own 
northern  instincts  might  wholesomely  superimpose  or 
graft  some  national  ideas  upon  these  sound  instruc- 
tions. Read  over  what  I  said  on  this  subject  in  the 
third  of  my  lectures  last  year  (page  79),  and  simplify 


14  The  Pleasures  of  Learning. 

that  already  brief  statement  further,  by  fastening  in 
your  mind  Carlyle's  general  symbol  of  the  best  attain- 
ments of  northern  religious  sculpture,  —  "  three  whale- 
cubs  combined  by  boiling,"  and  reflecting  that  the 
mental  history  of  all  northern  European  art  is  the 
modification  of  that  graceful  type,  under  the  orders  of 
the  Athena  of  Homer  and  Phidias. 

And  this  being  quite  indisputably  the  broad  fact  of 
the  matter,  I  greatly  marvel  that  your  historians  never, 
so  far  as  I  have  read,  think  of  proposing  to  you  the 
question  —  what  you  might  have  made  of  yourselves 
without  the  help  of  Homer  and  Phidias :  what  sort  of 
beings  the  Saxon  and  the  Celt,  the  Frank  and  the 
Dane,  might  have  been  by  this  time,  untouched  by  the 
spear  of  Pallas,  unruled  by  the  rod  of  Agricola,  and 
sincerely  the  native  growth,  pure  of  root,  and  ungrafted 
in  fruit  of  the  clay  of  Isis,  rock  of  Dovrefeldt,  and 
sands  of  Elbe  ?  Think  of  it,  and  think  chiefly  what 
form  the  ideas,  and  images,  of  your  natural  religion 
might  probably  have  taken,  if  no  Roman  missionary 
had  ever  passed  the  Alps  in  charity,  and  no  English 
king  in  pilgrimage. 

I  have  been  of  late  indebted  more  than  I  can  express 
to  the  friend  who  has  honoured  me  by  the  dedication 
of  his  recently  published  lectures  on  'Older  England  ;' 
and  whose  eager  enthusiasm  and  far  collected  learning 
have  enabled  me  for  the  first  time  to  assign  their  just 
meaning  and  value  to  the  ritual  and  imagery  of  Saxon 


Bertha  to   Osburga.  15 

devotion.  But  while  every  page  of  Mr.  Hodgett's 
book,  and,  I  may  gratefully  say  also,  every  sentence  of 
his  teaching,  has  increased  and  justified  the  respect  in 
which  I  have  always  been  by  my  own  feeling  disposed 
to  hold  the  mythologies  founded  on  the  love  and  knowl- 
edge of  the  natural  world,  I  have  also  been  led  by 
them  to  conceive,  far  more  forcibly  than  hitherto,  the 
power  which  the  story  of  Christianity  possessed,  first 
heard  through  the  wreaths  of  that  cloudy  superstition, 
in  the  substitution,  for  its  vaporescent  allegory,  of  a 
positive  and  literal  account  of  a  real  Creation,  and  an 
instantly  present,  omnipresent,  and  compassionate  God. 

Observe,  there  is  no  question  whatever  in  examining 
this  influence,  how  far  Christianity  itself  is  true,  or  the 
transcendental  doctrines  of  it  intelligible.  Those  who 
brought  you  the  story  of  it  believed  it  with  all  their 
souls  to  be  true,  — and  the  effect  of  it  on  the  hearts  of 
your  ancestors  was  that  of  an  unquestionable,  infinitely 
lucid  message  straight  from  God,  doing  away  with  all 
difficulties,  grief,  and  fears  for  those  who  willingly 
received  it,  nor  by  any,  except  wilfully  and  obstinately 
vile  persons,  to  be,  by  any  possibility,  denied  or 
refused. 

And  it  was  precisely,  observe,  the  vivacity  and  joy 
with  which  the  main  fact  of  Christ's  life  was  accepted 
which  gave  the  force  and  wrath  to  the  controversies 
instantly  arising  about  its  nature. 

Those  controversies  vexed  and  shook,  but  never  un« 


1 6  The  Pleasures  of  Learning. 

dermined,  the  faith  they  strove  to  purify,  and  the  mirac^ 
ulous  presence,  errorless  precept,  and  loving  promises 
of  their  Lord  were  alike  undoubted,  alike  rejoiced  in, 
by  every  nation  that  heard  the  word  of  Apostles.  The 
Pelagian's  assertion  that  immortality  could  be  won  by 
man's  will,  and  the  Arian's  that  Christ  possessed  no 
more  than  man's  nature,  never  for  an  instant  —  or  in 
any  country  —  hindered  the  advance  of  the  moral  law 
and  intellectual  hope  of  Christianity.  Far  the  con- 
trary ;  the  British  heresy  concerning  Free  Will,  though 
it  brought  bishop  after  bishop  into  England  to  extin- 
guish it,  remained  an  extremely  healthy  and  active 
element  in  the  British  mind  down  to  the  days  of  John 
Bunyan  and  the  guide  Great  Heart,  and  the  calmly 
Christian  justice  and  simple  human  virtue  of  Theodoric 
were  the  very  roots  and  first  burgeons  of  the  regenera- 
tion of  Italy.*  But  of  the  degrees  in  which  it  was 
possible  for  any  barbarous  nation  to  receive  during  the 
first  five  centuries,  either  the  spiritual  power  of  Chris- 
tianity itself,  or  the  instruction  in  classic  art  and 
science  which  accompanied  it,  you  cannot  rightly  judge, 
without  taking  the  pains,  and  they  will  not,  I  think,  be 

*  Gibbon,  in  his  37th  chapter,  makes  Ulphilas  also  an  Arian,  but  might  have 
forborne,  with  grace,  his  own  definition  of  orthodoxy :  —  and  you  are  to  observe 
generally  that  at  this  time  the  teachers  who  admitted  the  inferiority  of  Christ  to 
the  Father  as  touching  his  Manhood,  were  often  counted  among  Arians,  but 
quite  falsely.  Christ's  own  words,  "  My  Father  is  greater  than  I,"  end  that 
controversy  at  once.  Arianism  consists  not  in  asserting  the  subjection  of  the 
Son  to  the  Father,  but  in  denying  the  subjected  Divinity. 


Bertha  to   Osbtirga.  17 

irksome,  of  noticing  carefully,  and  fixing  permanently  in 
your  minds,  the  separating  characteristics  of  the  greater 
races,  both  in  those  who  learned  and  those  who  taught. 

Of  the  Huns  and  Vandals  we  need  not  speak.  They 
are  merely  forms  of  Punishment  and  Destruction.  Put 
them  out  of  your  minds  altogether,  and  remember  only 
the  names  of  the  immortal  nations,  which  abide  on 
their  native  rocks,  and  plough  their  unconquercd  plains, 
at  this  hour. 

Briefly,  in  the  north,  —  Briton,  Norman,  Frank,  Sax- 
on, Ostrogoth,  Lombard;  briefly,  in  the  south,  —  Tus- 
can, Roman,  Greek,  Syrian,  Egyptian,  Arabian. 

Now  of  these  races,  the  British  (I  avoid  the  word 
Celtic,  because  you  would  expect  me  to  say  Keltic ;  and 
I  don't  mean  to,  lest  you  should  be  wanting  mc  next  to 
call  the  patroness  of  music  St.  Kekilia),  the  British, 
including  Breton,  Cornish,  Welsh,  Irish,  Scot,  and  Pict, 
are,  I  believe,  of  all  the  northern  races,  the  one  which 
has  deepest  love  of  external  nature;  —  and  the  richest 
inherent  gift  of  pure  music  and  song,  as  such  ;  sepa- 
rated from  the  intellectual  gift  which  raises  song  into 
poetry.  They  are  naturally  also  religious,  and  for  some 
centuries  after  their  own  conversion  are  one  of  the 
chief  evangelizing  powers  in  Christendom.  But  they 
are  neither  apprehensive  nor  receptive  ;  —  they  cannot 
understand  the  classic  races,  and  learn  scarcely  any- 
thing from  them  ;  perhaps  better  so,  if  the  classic  races 
had  been  more  careful  to  understand  them. 


1 8  The  Pleasures  of  Learning. 

Next,  the  Norman  is  scarcely  more  apprehensive 
than  the  Celt,  but  he  is  more  constructive,  and  uses  to 
good  advantage  what  he  learns  from  the  Frank.  His 
main  characteristic  is  an  energy,  which  never  exhausts 
itself  in  vain  anger,  desire,  or  sorrow,  but  abides  and 
rules,  like  a  living  rock  :  —  where  he  wanders,  he  flows 
like  lava,  and  congeals  like  granite. 

Next,  I  take  in  this  first  sketch  the  Saxon  and  Frank 
together,  both  pre-eminently  apprehensive,  both  docile 
exceedingly,  imaginative  in  the  highest,  but  in  life 
active  more  than  pensive,  eager  in  desire,  swift  of 
invention,  keenly  sensitive  to  animal  beauty,  but  with 
difficulty  rational,  and  rarely,  for  the  future,  wise. 
Under  the  conclusive  name  of  Ostrogoth,  you  may 
class  whatever  tribes  are  native  to  Central  Germany, 
and  develope  themselves,  as  time  goes  on,  into  that 
power  of  the  German  Caesars  which  still  asserts  itself 
as  an  empire  against  the  licence  and  insolence  of  mod- 
ern republicanism,  —  of  which  races,  though  this  gen- 
eral name,  no  description  can  be  given  in  rapid  terms. 

And  lastly,  the  Lombards,  who,  at  the  time  we  have 
to  deal  with,  were  sternly  indocile,  gloomily  imagina- 
tive,—  of  almost  Norman  energy,  and  differing  from 
all  the  other  western  nations  chiefly  in  this  notable 
particular,  that  while  the  Celt  is  capable  of  bright  wit 
and  happy  play,  and  the  Norman,  Saxon,  and  Frank  all 
alike  delight  in  caricature,  the  Lombards,  like  the  Ara- 
bians, never  jest. 


Bertha  to   Oshu^ga.  19 

These,  briefly,  are  the  six  barbaric  nations  who  are 
to  be  taught :  and  of  whose  native  arts  and  faculties, 
before  they  receive  any  tutorship  from  the  south,  I  find 
no  well-sifted  account  in  any  history  :  —  but  thus  much 
of  them,  collecting  your  own  thoughts  and  knowledge, 
you  may  easily  discern  —  they  were  all,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  Scots,  practical  workers  and  builders  in 
wood;  and  those  of  them  who  had  coasts,  first  rate 
sea-boat  builders,  with  fine  mathematical  instincts  and 
practice  in  that  kind  far  developed,  necessarily  good 
sail-weaving,  and  sound  fur-stitching,  with  stout  iron- 
work of  nail  and  rivet ;  rich  copper  and  some  silver 
work  in  decoration  —  the  Celts  developing  peculiar 
gifts  in  linear  design,  but  wholly  incapable  of  drawing 
animals  or  figures  ;  —  the  Saxons  and  Franks  having 
enough  capacity  in  that  kind,  but  no  thought  of  at- 
tempting it ;  the  Normans  and  Lombards  still  farther 
remote  from  any  such  skill.  More  and  more,  it  seems 
to  me  wonderful  that  under  your  British  block-temple, 
grimly  extant  on  its  pastoral  plain,  or  beside  the  first 
crosses  engraved  on  the  rock  at  Whithorn  —  you  Eng- 
lish and  Scots  do  not  oftener  consider  what  you  might 
or  could  have  come  to,  left  to  yourselves. 

Next,  let  us  form  the  list  of  your  tutor  nations,  in 
whom  it  generally  pleases  you  to  look  at  nothing  but 
the  corruptions.  If  we  could  get  into  the  habit  of 
thinking  more  of  our  own  corruptions  and  more  of 
their  virtues,  we  should  have  a  better  chance  of  learn- 


20  The  Pleasures  of  Learning. 

incr  the  true  laws  alike  of  art  and  destiny.  But,  the 
safest  way  of  all,  is  to  assure  ourselves  that  true  knowl- 
edge of  any  thing  or  any  creature  is  only  of  the  good 
of  it ;  that  its  nature  and  life  are  in  that,  and  that  what 
is  diseased,  —  that  is  to  say,  unnatural  and  mortal, — 
you  must  cut  away  from  it  in  contemplation,  as  you 
would  in  surgery. 

Of  the  six  tutor  nations,  two,  the  Tuscan  and  Arab, 
have  no  effect  on  early  Christian  England.  But  the 
Roman,  Greek,  Syrian,  and  Egyptian  act  together  from 
the  earliest  times ;  you  are  to  study  the  influence  of 
Rome  upon  England  in  Agricola,  Constantius,  St.  Ben- 
edict, and  St.  Gregory;  of  Greece  upon  England  in 
the  artists  of  Byzantium  and  Ravenna;  of  Syria  and 
Egypt  upon  England  in  St.  Jerome,  St.  Augustine,  St. 
Chrysostom,  and  St.  Athanase. 

St.  Jerome,  in  central  Bethlehem;  St.  Augustine, 
Carthaginian  by  birth,  in  truth  a  converted  Tyrian, 
Athanase,  Egyptian,  symmetric  and  fixed  as  an  Egyp- 
tian aisle  ;  Chrysostom,  golden  mouth  of  all ;  these  are, 
indeed,  every  one  teachers  of  all  the  western  world, 
but  St.  Augustine  especially  of  lay,  as  distinguished 
from  monastic,  Christianity  to  the  Franks,  and  finally 
to  us.  His  rule,  expanded  into  the  treatise  of  the  City 
of  God,  is  taken  for  guide  of  life  and  policy  by  Charle- 
magne, and  becomes  certainly  the  fountain  of  Evangel- 
ical Christianity,  distinctively  so  called,  (and  broadly 
the   lay  Christianity  of   Europe,  since,  in  the  purest 


Bertha  to   Osbiirga.  21 

form  of  it,  that  is  to  say,  the  most  merciful,  charitable, 
variously  applicable,  kindly  wise.)  The  greatest  type 
of  it,  as  far  as  I  know,  St.  Martin  of  Tours,  whose 
character  is  sketched,  I  think  in  the  main  rightly,  in 
the  Bible  of  Amiens ;  and  you  may  bind  together  your 
thoughts  of  its  course  by  remembering  that  Alcuin, 
born  at  York,  dies  in  the  Abbey  of  St.  Martin,  at 
Tours ;  that  as  St.  Augustine  was  in  his  writings 
Charlemagne's  Evangelist  in  faith,  Alcuin  was,  in 
living  presence,  his  master  in  rhetoric,  logic,  and  as- 
tronomy, with  the  other  physical  sciences. 

A  hundred  years  later  than  St.  Augustine,  comes  the 
rule  of  St.  Benedict  —  the  IMonastic  rule,  virtually,  of 
European  Christianity,  ever  since  —  and  theologically 
the  Law  of  Works,  as  distinguished  from  the  Law  of 
Faith.  St.  Augustine  and  all  the  disciples  of  St. 
Augustine  tell  Christians  what  they  should  feel  and 
think  :  St.  Benedict  and  all  the  disciples  of  St.  Bene- 
dict tell  Christians  what  they  should  say  and  do. 

In  the  briefest,  but  also  the  perfectest  distinction, 
the  disciples  of  St.  Augustine  are  those  who  open  the 
door  to  Christ  —  "  If  any  man  hear  my  voice  "  ;  but 
the  Benedictines  those  to  whom  Christ  opens  the  door 
—  "To  him  that  knocketh  it  shall  be  opened." 

Now,  note  broadly  the  course  and  action  of  this  rule, 
as  it  combines  with  the  older  one.  St.  Augustine's, 
accepted  heartily  by  Clovis,  and,  with  various  degrees 
of    understanding,    by   the   kings   and   queens   of    the 


22  The  Pleasures  of  Learning. 

Merovingian  dynasty,  makes  seemingly  little  difference 
in  their  conduct,  so  that  their  profession  of  it  remains 
a  scandal  to  Christianity  to  this  day ;  and  yet  it  lives, 
in  the  true  hearts  among  them,  down  from  St.  Clotilde 
to  her  great  grand-daughter  Bertha,  who  in  becoming 
Queen  of  Kent,  builds  under  its  chalk  downs  her  own 
little  chapel  to  St.  Martin,  and  is  the  first  effectively 
and  permanently  useful  missionary  to  the  Saxons,  the 
beginner  of  English  Erudition,  —  the  first  laid  corner 
stone  of  beautiful  English  character. 

I  think  henceforward  you  will  find  the  memorandum 
of  dates  which  I  have  here  set  down  for  my  own  guid- 
ance more  simply  useful  than  those  confused  by  record 
of  unimportant  persons  and  inconsequent  events,  which 
form  the  indices  of  common  history. 

From  the  year  of  the  Saxon  invasion  449,  there  are 
exactly  400  years  to  the  birth  of  Alfred,  849.  You 
have  no  difficulty  in  remembering  those  cardinal  years. 
Then,  you  have  Four  great  men  and  great  events  to 
remember,  at  the  close  of  the  fifth  century.  Clovis, 
and  the  founding  of  Frank  Kingdom  ;  Theodoric  and 
the  founding  of  the  Gothic  Kingdom  ;  Justinian  and 
the  founding  of  Civil  law;  St.  Benedict  and  the  found- 
ing of  Religious  law. 

Of  Justinian,  and  his  work,  I  am  not  able  myself  to 
form  any  opinion  —  and  it  is,  I  think,  unnecessary  for 
students  of  history  to  form  any,  until  they  are  able  to 
estimate  clearly  the  benefits,  and  mischief,  of  the  civil 


Bertha  to    Osburga.  23 

law  of  Europe  in  its  present  state.  But  to  Clovis, 
Theodoric,  and  St.  Benedict,  without  any  question,  we 
owe  more  than  any  English  historian  has  yet  ascribed, 
—  and  they  are  easily  held  in  mind  together,  for  Clovis 
ascended  the  Frank  throne  in  the  year  of  St.  Benedict's 
birth,  481.  Theodoric  fought  the  battle  of  Verona, 
and  founded  the  Ostrogothic  Kingdom  in  Italy  twelve 
years  later,  in  493,  and  thereupon  married  the  sister  of 
Clovis.  That  marriage  is  always  passed  in  a  casual 
sentence,  as  if  a  merely  political  one,  and  while  page 
after  page  is  spent  in  following  the  alternations  of  furi- 
ous crime  and  fatal  chance,  in  the  contests  between 
Fredegonde  and  Brunehaut,  no  historian  ever  considers 
whether  the  great  Ostrogoth  who  wore  in  the  battle  of 
Verona  the  dress  which  his  mother  had  woven  for  him, 
was  likely  to  have  chosen  a  wife  without  love! — or 
how  far  the  perfectness,  justice,  and  temperate  wisdom 
of  every  ordinance  of  his  reign  was  owing  to  the  sym- 
pathy and  counsel  of  his  Frankish  queen. 

You  have  to  recollect,  then,  thus  far,  only  three 
cardinal  dates  :  — 

449.    Saxon  invasion. 

481.    Clovis  reigns  and  St.  Benedict  is  born. 

493.    Theodoric  conquers  at  Verona. 

Then,  roughly,  a  hundred  years  later,  in  590,  Ethel- 
bert,  the  fifth  from  Hengist,  and  Bertha,  the  third  from 
Clotilde,  are  king  and  queen  of  Kent.  I  cannot  find 
the  date  of  their  marriage,  but  the  date,   590,  which 


24  The  Pleastires  of  Learning. 

you  must  recollect  for  cardinal,  is  that  of  Gregory's 
accession  to  the  pontificate,  and  I  believe  Bertha  was 
then  in  middle  life,  having  persevered  in  her  religion 
firmly,  but  inoffensively,  and  made  herself  beloved  by 
her  husband  and  people.  She,  in  England,  Theodo- 
linda  in  Lombardy,  and  St.  Gregory  in  Rome :  —  in 
their  hands,  virtually  lay  the  destiny  of  Europe. 

Then  the  period  from  Bertha  to  Osburga,  590  to 
849  —  say  250  years  —  is  passed  by  the  Saxon  people 
in  the  daily  more  reverent  learning  of  the  Christian 
faith,  and  daily  more  peaceful  and  skilful  practice  of 
the  humane  arts  and  duties  which  it  invented  and 
inculcated. 

The  statement  given  by  Sir  Edward  Creasy  of  the 
result  of  these  250  years  of  lesson  is,  with  one  cor- 
rection, the  most  simple  and  just  that  I  can  find. 

"  A  few  years  before  the  close  of  the  sixth  century, 
the  country  was  little  more  than  a  wide  battle-field, 
where  gallant  but  rude  warriors  fought  with  each 
other,  or  against  the  neighbouring  Welsh  or  Scots ; 
unheeding  and  unheeded  by  the  rest  of  Europe,  or,  if 
they  attracted  casual  attention,  regarded  with  dread 
and  disgust  as  the  fiercest  of  barbarians  and  the  most 
untameable  of  pagans.  In  the  eighth  century,  Eng- 
land was  looked  up  to  with  admiration  and  gratitude, 
as  superior  to  all  the  other  countries  of  Western  Eu- 
rope in  piety  and  learning,  and  as  the  land  whence 
the   most   zealous  and   successful  saints  and  teachers 


Bertha  to   Osburga.  25 

came  forth  to  convert  and  enlighten  the  still  barbarous 
regions  of  the  continent." 

This  statement  is  broadly  true ;  yet  the  correction 
it  needs  is  a  very  important  one.  England,  —  under 
her  first  Alfred  of  Northumberland,  and  under  Ina  of 
Wessex,  is  indeed  during  these  centuries  the  most 
learned,  thoughtful,  and  progressive  of  European  states. 
But  she  is  not  a  missionary  power.  The  missionaries 
are  always  to  her,  not  from  her:  —  for  the  very  reason 
that  she  is  learning  so  eagerly,  she  does  not  take  to 
preaching.  Ina  founds  his  Saxon  school  at  Rome  not 
to  teach  Rome,  nor  convert  the  Pope,  but  to  drink  at 
the  source  of  knowledge,  and  to  receive  laws  from 
direct  and  unquestioned  authority.  The  missionary 
power  was  wholly  Scotch  and  Irish,  and  that  power 
was  wholly  one  of  zeal  and  faith,  not  of  learning.  I 
will  ask  you,  in  the  course  of  my  next  lecture,  to  regard 
it  attentively ;  to-day,  I  must  rapidly  draw  to  the  con- 
clusions I  would  leave  with  you. 

It  is  more  and  more  wonderful  to  me  as  I  think  of 
it,  that  no  effect  whatever  was  produced  on  the  Saxon, 
nor  on  any  other  healthy  race  of  the  North,  either  by 
the  luxury  of  Rome,  or  by  her  art,  whether  construc- 
tive or  imitative.  The  Saxon  builds  no  aqueducts  — 
designs  no  roads,  rounds  no  theatres  in  imitation  of 
her,  —  envies  none  of  her  vile  pleasures, — admires,  so 
far  as  I  can  judge,  none  of  her  far-carried  realistic  art. 
I  suppose  that  it  needs  intelligence  of  a  more  advanced 


26  The  Pleasures  of  Learning. 

kind  to  see  the  qualities  of  complete  sculpture:  and 
that  we  may  think  of  the  Northern  intellect  as  still  like 
that  of  a  child,  who  cares  to  picture  its  own  thoughts 
in  its  own  way,  but  does  not  care  for  the  thoughts  of 
older  people,  or  attempt  to  copy  what  it  feels  too  diffi- 
cult. This  much  at  least  is  certain,  that  for  one  cause 
or  another,  everything  that  now  at  Paris  or  London  our 
painters  most  care  for  and  try  to  realize,  of  ancient 
Rome,  was  utterly  innocuous  and  unattractive  to  the 
Saxon :  while  his  mind  was  frankly  open  to  the  direct 
teaching  of  Greece  and  to  the  methods  of  bright  dec- 
oration employed  in  the  Byzantine  Empire  :  for  these 
alone  seemed  to  his  fancy  suggestive  of  the  glories 
of  the  brighter  world  promised  by  Christianity.  Jew- 
ellery, vessels  of  gold  and  silver,  beautifully  written 
books,  and  music,  are  the  gifts  of  St.  Gregory  alike  to 
the  Saxon  and  Lombard ;  all  these  beautiful  things 
being  used,  not  for  the  pleasure  of  the  present  life, 
but  as  the  symbols  of  another ;  while  the  drawings  in 
Saxon  manuscripts,  in  which,  better  than  in  any  other 
remains  of  their  life,  we  can  read  the  people's  charac- 
ter, are  rapid  endeavours  to  express  for  themselves, 
and  convey  to  others,  some  likeness  of  the  realities  of 
sacred  event  in  which  they  had  been  instructed.  They 
differ  from  every  archaic  school  of  former  design  in 
this  evident  correspondence  with  an  imagined  reality. 
All  previous  archaic  art  whatsoever  is  symbolic  and 
decorative  —  not   realistic.      The  contest  of   Herakles 


Bertha  to   Osburga.  27 

with  the  Hydra  on  a  Greek  vase  is  a  mere  sign  that 
such  a  contest  took  place,  not  a  picture  of  it,  and  in 
drawing  that  sign  the  potter  is  always  thinking  of  the 
effect  of  the  engraved  lines  on  the  curves  of  his  pot, 
and  taking  care  to  keep  out  of  the  way  of  the  handle ; 
—  but  a  Saxon  monk  would  scratch  his  idea  of  the  Fall 
of  the  angels  or  the  Temptation  of  Christ  over  a  whole 
page  of  his  manuscript  in  variously  explanatory  scenes, 
evidently  full  of  inexpressible  vision,  and  eager  to 
explain  and  illustrate  all  that  he  felt  or  believed. 

Of  the  progress  and  arrest  of  these  gifts,  I  shall 
have  to  speak  in  my  next  address  ;  but  I  must  regret- 
fully conclude  to-day  v/ith  some  brief  warning  against 
the  complacency  which  might  lead  you  to  regard  them 
as  either  at  that  time  entirely  original  in  the  Saxon 
race,  or  at  the  present  day  as  signally  characteristic  of 
it.  That  form  of  complacency  is  exhibited  in  its  most 
amiable  but,  therefore,  most  deceptive  guise,  in  the 
passage  with  which  the  late  Dean  of  Westminster 
concluded  his  lecture  at  Canterbury  in  April,  1854,  on 
the  subject  of  the  landing  of  Augustine.  I  will  not 
spoil  the  emphasis  of  the  passage  by  comment  as  I 
read,  but  must  take  leave  afterwards  to  intimate  some 
grounds  for  abatement  in  the  fervour  of  its  self-gratu- 
latory  ecstasy. 

"  Let  any  one  sit  on  the  hill  of  the  little  church  of 
St.  Martin,  and  look  on  the  view  which  is  there  spread 
before   his  eyes.      Immediately  below  are  the  towers 


28  The  Pleasures  of  Learning. 

of  the  great  abbey  of  St.  Augustine,  where  Christian 
learning  and  civilization  first  struck  root  in  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race  ;  and  within  which  now,  after  a  lapse  of 
many  centuries,  a  new  institution  has  arisen,  intended  to 
carry  far  and  wide,  to  countries  of  which  Gregory  and 
Augustine  never  heard,  the  blessings  which  they  gave 
to  us.  Carry  your  view  on — and  there  rises  high  above 
all  the  magnificent  pile  of  our  cathedral,  equal  in  splen- 
dour and  state  to  any,  the  noblest  temple  or  church 
that  Augustine  could  have  seen  in  ancient  Rome, 
rising  on  the  very  ground  which  derives  its  consecra- 
tion from  him.  And  still  more  than  the  grandeur  of 
the  outward  buildings  that  rose  from  the  little  church 
of  Augustine  and  the  little  palace  of  Ethelbert  have 
been  the  institutions  of  all  kinds  of  which  these  were 
the  earliest  cradle.  From  Canterbury,  the  first  English 
Christian  city, — from  Kent,  the  first  English  Christian 
kingdom  —  has  by  degrees  arisen  the  whole  constitu- 
tion of  Church  and  State  in  England  which  now  binds 
together  the  whole  British  Empire.  And  from  the 
Christianity  here  established  in  England  has  flowed, 
by  direct  consequence,  first  the  Christianity  of  Ger- 
many ;  then,  after  a  long  interval,  of  North  America ; 
and  lastly,  we  may  trust,  in  time,  of  all  India  and  all 
Australasia.  The  view  from  St.  Martin's  Church  is 
indeed  one  of  the  most  inspiriting  that  can  be  found 
in  the  world  ;  there  is  none  to  which  I  would  more 
willingly  take  any  one  who  doubted  whether  a  small 


Bertha  to   Osbiirga.  29 

beginning  could  lead  to  a  great  and  lasting  good ;  — 
none  which  carries  us  more  vividly  back  into  the  past, 
or  more  hopefully  forward  into  the  future." 

To  this  Gregorian  canticle  in  praise  of  the  British 
constitution,  I  grieve,  but  am  compelled,  to  take  these 
following  historical  objections.  The  first  missionary 
to  Germany  was  Ulphilas,  and  what  she  owes  to  these 
islands  she  owes  to  lona,  not  to  Thanet.  Our  mission- 
ary offices  to  America  as  to  Africa,  consist  I  believe 
principally  in  the  stealing  of  land,  and  the  extermina- 
tion of  its  proprietors  by  intoxication.  Our  rule  in 
India  has  introduced  there,  Paisley  instead  of  Cash- 
mere shawls  :  in  Australasia  our  Christian  aid  supplies, 
I  suppose,  the  pious  farmer  with  convict  labour.  And 
although,  when  the  Dean  wrote  the  above  passage,  St. 
Augustine's  and  the  cathedral  were — 1  take  it  on  trust 
from  his  description  —  the  principal  objects  in  the 
prospect  from  St.  Martin's  Hill,  I  believe  even  the 
cheerfidlest  of  my  audience  would  not  now  think 
the  scene  one  of  the  most  inspiriting  in  the  world. 
For  recent  progress  has  entirely  accommodated  the 
architecture  of  the  scene  to  the  convenience  of  the 
missionary  workers  above  enumerated  ;  to  the  peculiar 
necessities  of  the  civilization  they  have  achieved.  For 
the  sake  of  which  the  cathedral,  the  monastery,  the 
temple,  and  the  tomb,  of  Bertha,  contract  themselves 
in  distant  or  despised  subservience  under  the  colossal 
walls  of  the  county  gaol. 


LECTURE    II. 


THE    PLEASURES    OF    FAITH. 
tAlfred  to  the  Confessor. 


LECTURE   11. 
THE   PLEASURES   OF   FAITH. 


ALFRED   TO   THE   CONFESSOR. 

I  WAS  forced  in  my  last  lecture  to  pass  by  alto- 
gether, and  to-day  can  only  with  momentary  defini- 
tion notice,  the  part  taken  by  Scottish  missionaries  in 
the  Christianizing  of  England  and  Burgundy.  I.  would 
pray  you  therefore,  in  order  to  fill  the  gap  which  I 
think  it  better  to  leave  distinctly,  than  close  confusedly, 
to  read  the  histories  of  St.  Patrick,  St.  Columba,  and 
St.  Columban,  as  they  are  given  you  by  Montalembert 
in  his  '  Moines  d'Occident.'  You  will  find  in  his  pages 
all  the  essential  facts  that  are  known,  encircled  with 
a  nimbus  of  enthusiastic  sympathy  which  I  hope  you 
will  like  better  to  see  them  through,  than  distorted  by 
blackening  fog  of  contemptuous  rationalism.  But  al- 
though I  ask  you  thus  to  make  yourselves  aware  of  the 
greatness  of  my  omission,  I  must  also  certify  you  that 
it  does  not  break  the  unity  of  our  own  immediate 
subject.     The  influence  of  Celtic  passion  and  art  both 

i3 


34  The  Pleasures  of  Faith. 

on  Northumbria  and  the  Continent,  beneficent  in  all 
respects  while  it  lasted,  expired  without  any  permanent 
share  in  the  work  or  emotion  of  the  Saxon  and  Frank. 
The  book  of  Kells,  and  the  bell  of  St.  Patrick,  repre- 
sent sufficiently  the  peculiar  character  of  Celtic  design ; 
and  long  since,  in  the  first  lecture  of  the  'Two  Paths,' 
I  explained  both  the  modes  of  skill,  and  points  of 
weakness,  which  rendered  such  design  unprogressive. 
Perfect  in  its  peculiar  manner,  and  exulting  in  the 
faultless  practice  of  a  narrow  skill,  it  remained  cen- 
tury after  century  incapable  alike  of  inner  growth,  or 
foreign  instruction ;  inimitable,  yet  incorrigible ;  mar- 
vellous, yet  despicable,  to  its  death.  Despicable,  I 
mean,  only  in  the  limitation  of  its  capacity,  not  in  its 
quality  or  nature.  If  you  make  a  Christian  of  a  lamb 
or  a  squirrel  —  what  can  you  expect  of  the  lamb 
but  jumping  —  what  of  the  squirrel,  but  pretty  spirals, 
traced  with  his  tail  t  He  won't  steal  your  nuts  any 
more,  and  he'll  say  his  prayers  like  this  —  *  ;  but  you 
cannot  make  a  Beatrice's  griffin,  and  emblem  of  all  the 
Catholic  Church,  out  of  him. 

You  will  have  observed,  also,  that  the  plan  of  these 
lectures  does  not  include  any  reference  to  the  Roman 
Period  in  England ;  of  which  you  will  find  all  I  think 
necessary  to  say,  in  the  part  called  Valle  Crucis  of 
'  Our  Fathers  have  told  us.'  But  I  must  here  warn 
you,  with  reference  to  it,  of  one  gravely  false  prejudice 

*  Making  a  sign. 


Alfred  to  the   Confessor.  35 

of  Montalembert.  He  is  entirely  blind  to  the  condi- 
tions of  Roman  virtue,  which  existed  in  the  midst  of 
the  corruptions  of  the  Empire,  forming  the  characters 
of  such  Emperors  as  Pertinax,  Carus,  Probus,  the  sec- 
ond Claudius,  Aurelian,  and  our  own  Constantius ;  and 
he  denies,  with  abusive  violence,  the  power  for  good, 
of  Roman  Law,  over  the  Gauls  and  Britons. 

Respecting  Roman  national  character,  I  will  simply 
beg  you  to  remember,  that  both  St.  Benedict  and  St. 
Gregory  are  Roman  patricians,  before  they  are  either 
monk  or  pope ;  respecting  its  influence  on  Britain,  I 
think  you  may  rest  content  with  Shakespeare's  esti- 
mate of  it.  Both  Lear  and  Cymbeline  belong  to  this 
time,  so  difficult  to  our  apprehension,  when  the  Briton 
accepted  both  Roman  laws  and  Roman  gods.  There 
is  indeed  the  born  Kentish  gentleman's  protest  against 
them  in  Kent's  — 

"  Now,  by  Apollo,  king. 
Thou  swear'st  thy  gods  in  vain  "  ; 

but  both  Cordelia  and  Imogen  are  just  as  thoroughly 
Roman  ladies,  as  Virgilia  or  Calphurnia. 

Of  British  Christianity  and  the  Arthurian  Legends, 
I  shall  have  a  word  or  two  to  say  in  my  lecture  on 
"  Fancy,"  in  connection  with  the  similar  romance 
which  surrounds  Theodoric  and  Charlemagne :  only 
the  worst  of  it  is,  that  while  both  Dietrich  and  Karl 
are  themselves    more  wonderful   than   the   legends  of 


36  The  Pleasures  of  Faith. 

them,  Arthur  fades  into  intangible  vision:  —  this  much, 
however,  remains  to  this  day,  of  Arthurian  blood  in 
us,  that  the  richest  fighting  element  in  the  British 
army  and  navy  is  British  native,  —  that  is  to  say,  High- 
lander, Irish,  Welsh,  and  Cornish. 

Content,  therefore,  (means  being  now  given  you  for 
filling  gaps,)  with  the  estimates  given  you  in  the  pre- 
ceding lecture  of  the  sources  of  instruction  possessed 
by  the  Saxon  capital,  I  pursue  to-day  our  question 
originally  proposed,  what  London  might  have  been  by 
this  time,  if  the  nature  of  the  flowers,  trees,  and  chil- 
dren, born  at  the  Thames-side,  had  been  rightly  under- 
stood and  cultivated. 

Many  of  my  hearers  can  imagine  far  better  than  I, 
the  look  that  London  must  have  had  in  Alfred's  and 
Canute's  days.*  I  have  not,  indeed,  the  least  idea  my- 
self what  its  buildings  were  like,  but  certainly  the 
groups  of  its  shipping  must  have  been  superb ;  small, 

*  Here  Alfred's  Silver  Penny  was  shown  and  commented  on,  thus :  —  Of 
what  London  was  like  in  the  days  of  faith,  I  can  show  you  one  piece  of  artistic 
evidence.  It  is  Alfred's  silver  penny  struck  in  London  mint.  The  character 
of  a  coinage  is  quite  conclusive  evidence  in  national  history,  and  there  is  no 
great  empire  in  progress,  but  tells  its  story  in  beautiful  coins.  Here  in  Alfred's 
penny,  a  round  coin  with  L.O.N.D.I.N.I.A.  struck  on  it,  you  have  just  the  same 
beauty  of  design,  the  same  enigmatical  arrangement  of  letters,  as  in  the  early 
inscription,  which  it  is  "  the  pride  of  my  life "  to  have  discovered  at  Venice. 
This  inscription  ("  the  first  words  that  Venice  ever  speaks  aloud  ")  is,  it  will  be 
remembered,  on  the  Church  of  St.  Giacomo  di  Rialto,  and  runs,  being  inter- 
preted—  "Around  this  temple,  let  the  merchant's  law  be  just,  his  weights  true, 
and  his  covenants  faithful." 


Alfred  to  the   Confessor.  37 

but  entirely  seaworthy  vessels,  manned  by  the  best 
seamen  in  the  then  world.  Of  course,  now,  at  Chat- 
ham and  Portsmouth  we  have  our  ironclads,  — extreme- 
ly beautiful  and  beautifully  manageable  things,  no 
doubt  —  to  set  against  this  Saxon  and  Danish  shipping; 
but  the  Saxon  war-ships  lay  here  at  London  shore  — 
bright  with  banner  and  shield  and  dragon  prow,  — 
instead  of  these  you  may  be  happier,  but  are  not 
handsomer,  in  having,  now,  the  coal-barge,  the  penny 
steamer,  and  the  wherry  full  of  shop  boys  and  girls. 
I  dwell  however  for  a  moment  only  on  the  naval  aspect 
of  the  tidal  waters  in  the  days  of  Alfred,  because  I  can 
refer  you  for  all  detail  on  this  part  of  our  subject  to 
the  wonderful  opening  chapter  of  Dean  Stanley's  His- 
tory of  Westminster  Abbey,  where  you  will  find  the 
origin  of  the  name  of  London  given  as  "  The  City  of 
Ships."  He  does  not,  however,  tell  you,  that  there 
were  built,  then  and  there,  the  biggest  war-ships  in  the 
world.  I  have  often  said  to  friends  who  praised  my 
own  books  that  I  would  rather  have  written  that  chap- 
ter than  any  one  of  them  ;  yet  if  I  had  been  able  to 
write  the  historical  part  of  it,  the  conclusions  drawn 
would  have  been  extremely  different.  The  Dean  in- 
deed describes  with  a  poet's  joy  the  River  of  wells, 
which  rose  from  those  "once  consecrated  springs  which 
now  lie  choked  in  Holywell  and  Clerkcnwell,  and  the 
rivulet  of  Ulebrig  which  crossed  the  Strand  under  the 
Ivy  bridge  "  ;  but  it  is  only  in  the  spirit  of  a  modern 


38  The  Pleasures  of  Faith. 

citizen  of  Belgravia  that  he  exults  in  the  fact  that 
"the  great  arteries  of  our  crowded  streets,  the  vast 
sewers  which  cleanse  our  habitations,  are  fed  by  the 
life-blood  of  those  old  and  living  streams ;  that  under- 
neath our  tread  the  Tyburn,  and  the  Holborn,  and  the 
Fleet,  and  the  Wall  Brook,  are  still  pursuing  their 
ceaseless  course,  still  ministering  to  the  good  of  man, 
though  in  a  far  different  fashion  than  when  Druids 
drank  of  their  sacred  springs,  and  Saxons  were  bap- 
tized in  their  rushing  waters,  ages  ago." 

Whatever  sympathy  you  may  feel  with  these  elo- 
quent expressions  of  that  entire  complacency  in  the 
present,  past,  and  future,  which  peculiarly  animates 
Dean  Stanley's  writings,  I  must,  in  this  case,  pray  you 
to  observe  that  the  transmutation  of  holy  wells  into 
sewers  has,  at  least,  destroyed  the  charm  and  utility 
of  the  Thames  as  a  salmon  stream,  and  I  must  ask  you 
to  read  with  attention  the  succeeding  portions  of  the 
chapter  which  record  the  legends  of  the  river  fisheries 
in  their  relation  to  the  first  Abbey  of  Westminster; 
dedicated  by  its  builders  to  St.  Peter,  not  merely  in  his 
office  of  cornerstone  of  the  Church,  nor  even  figura- 
tively as  a  fisher  of  men,  but  directly  as  a  fisher  of 
fish  :  —  and  which  maintained  themselves,  you  will  see, 
in  actual  ceremony  down  to  1382,  when  a  fisherman 
still  annually  took  his  place  beside  the  Prior,  after 
having  brought  in  a  salmon  for  St.  Peter,  which  was 
carried  in  state  down  the  middle  of  the  refectory. 


Alfred  to  the   Confessor.  39 

But  as  I  refer  to  this  page  for  the  exact  word,  my 
eye  is  caught  by  one  of  the  sentences  of  Lonclonian  * 
thought  which  constantly  pervert  the  well-meant  books 
of  pious  England.  "  We  see  also,"  says  the  Dean, 
"the  union  of  innocent  fiction  with  worldly  craft,  which 
marks  so  many  of  the  legends  both  of  Pagan  and 
Christian  times."  I  might  simply  reply  to  this  insin- 
uation that  times  which  have  no  legends  differ  from 
the  legendary  ones  merely  by  uniting  guilty,  instead 
of  innocent,  fiction,  with  worldly  craft;  but  I  must 
farther  advise  you  that  the  legends  of  these  passion- 
ate times  are  in  no  wise,  and  in  no  sense,  fiction  at 
all ;  but  the  true  record  of  impressions  made  on  the 
minds  of  persons  in  a  state  of  eager  spiritual  excite- 
ment, brought  into  bright  focus  by  acting  steadily  and 
frankly  under  its  impulses.  I  could  tell  you  a  great 
deal  more  about  such  things  than  you  would  believe, 
and  therefore,  a  great  deal  more  than  it  would  do  you 
the  least  good  to  hear  ;  —  but  this  much  any  who  care 
to  use  their  common  sense  modestly,  cannot  but  admit, 
that  unless  they  choose  to  try  the  rough  life  of  the 
Christian  ages,  they  cannot  understand  its  practical 
consequences.  You  have  all  been  taught  by  Lord 
Macaulay  and  his  school  that  because  you  have  Carpets 
instead  of  rushes  for  your  feet ;  and  Feather-beds  in- 
stead if  fern  for  your  backs  ;  and  Kickshaws  instead  of 
beef  for  your  eating  ;  and  Drains  instead  of  Holy  Wells 

*  Not  Londinian. 


40  The  Pleasures  of  Faith. 

for  your  drinking;  —  that,  therefore,  you  are  the  Cream 
of  Creation,  and  every  one  of  you  a  seven-headed 
Solomon.  Stay  in  those  pleasant  circumstances  and 
convictions  if  you  please ;  but  don't  accuse  your 
roughly  bred  and  fed  fathers  of  telling  lies  about 
the  aspect  the  earth  and  sky  bore  to  tJiein,  —  till  you 
have  trodden  the  earth  as  they,  barefoot,  and  seen  the 
heavens  as  they,  face  to  face.  If  you  care  to  see  and 
to  know  for  yourselves,  you  may  do  it  with  little  pains ; 
you  need  not  do  any  great  thing,  you  needn't  keep  one 
eye  open  and  the  other  shut  for  ten  years  over  a  micro- 
scope, nor  fight  your  way  through  icebergs  and  dark- 
ness to  knowledge  of  the  celestial  pole.  Simply,  do  as 
much  as  king  after  king  of  the  Saxons  did,  —  put  rough 
shoes  on  your  feet  and  a  rough  cloak  on  your  shouL 
ders,  and  walk  to  Rome  and  back.  Sleep  by  the 
roadside,  when  it  is  fine,  —  in  the  first  outhouse  you 
can  find,  when  it  is  wet ;  and  live  on  bread  and  water, 
with  an  onion  or  two,  all  the  way ;  and  if  the  experi- 
ences which  you  will  have  to  relate  on  your  return  do 
not,  as  may  well  be,  deserve  the  name  of  spiritual ;  at 
all  events  you  will  not  be  disposed  to  let  other  people 
regard  them  either  as  Poetry  or  Fiction. 

With  this  warning,  presently  to  be  at  greater  length 
insisted  on,  I  trace  for  you,  in  Dean  Stanley's  words, 
which  cannot  be  bettered  except  in  the  collection  of 
their  more  earnest  passages  from  among  his  interludes 
of  graceful  but  dangerous  qualification,  —  I  trace,  with 


Alfred  to  the   Confessor.  41 

only  such  omission,  the  story  he  has  told  us  of  the 
foundation  of  that  Abbey,  which,  he  tells  you,  was  the 
Mother  of  London,  and  has  ever  been  the  shrine  and 
the  throne  of  English  faith  and  truth. 

"The  gradual  formation  of  a  monastic  body,  indi- 
cated in  the  charters  of  Offa  and  Edgar,  marks  the 
spread  of  the  Benedictine  order  throughout  England, 
under  the  influence  of  Dunstan.  The  'terror'  of  the 
spot,  which  had  still  been  its  chief  characteristic  in 
the  charter  of  the  wild  Offa,  had,  in  the  days  of  the 
more  peaceful  Edgar,  given  way  to  a  dubious  'renown.' 
Twelve  monks  is  the  number  traditionally  said  to  have 
been  established  by  Dunstan.  A  few  acres  further  up 
the  river  formed  their  chief  property,  and  their  monas- 
tic character  was  sufficiently  recognized  to  have  given 
to  the  old  locality  of  the  '  terrible  place '  the  name  of 
the  'Western  Monastery,'  or  'Minster  of  the  West.'  " 

The  Benedictines  then  —  twelve  Benedictine  monks 
—  thus  begin  the  building  of  existent  Christian  Lon- 
don. You  know  I  told  you  the  Benedictines  are  the 
Doing  people,  as  the  disciples  of  St.  Augustine  the 
Sentimental  people.  The  Benedictines  find  no  terror 
in  their  own  thoughts  —  face  the  terror  of  places  — 
change  it  into  beauty  of  places, — make  this  terrible 
place,  a  Motherly  Place  —  Mother  of  London. 

This  first  Westminster,  however,  the  Dean  goes  on 
to  say,  "seems  to  have  been  overrun  by  the  Danes, 
and  it  would  have  had  no  further  history  but  for  the 


42  The  Pleasures  of  Faith. 

combination  of  circumstances  which  directed  hither  the 
notice  of  Edward  the  Confessor. 

I  haven't  time  to  read  you  all  the  combination  of  cir 
cumstances.    The  last  clinching  circumstance  was  this  — 

"  There  was  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Worcester,  '  far 
from  men  in  the  wilderness,  on  the  slope  of  a  wood,  in 
a  cave  deep  down  in  the  grey  rock,'  a  holy  hermit  '  of 
great  age,  living  on  fruits  and  roots.'  One  night  when, 
after  reading  in  the  Scriptures  '  how  hard  are  the  pains 
of  hell,  and  how  the  enduring  life  of  Heaven  is  sweet 
and  to  be  desired,'  he  could  neither  sleep  nor  repose, 
St.  Peter  appeared  to  him,  'bright  and  beautiful,  like 
to  a  clerk,'  and  warned  him  to  tell  the  King  that  he 
was  released  from  his  vow ;  that  on  that  very  day  his 
messengers  would  return  from  Rome ; "  (that  is  the 
combination  of  circumstances  —  bringing  Pope's  order 
to  build  a  church  to  release  the  King  from  his  vow  of 
pilgrimage) ;  "  that  '  at  Thorney,  two  leagues  from  the 
city,'  was  the  spot  marked  out  where,  in  an  ancient 
church,  'situated  low,'  he  was  to  establish  a  perfect 
Benedictine  monastery,  which  should  be  'the  gate  of 
heaven,  the  ladder  of  prayer,  whence  those  who  serve 
St.  Peter  there,  shall  by  him  be  admitted  into  Para- 
dise.' The  hermit  writes  the  account  of  the  vision  on 
parchment,  seals  it  with  wax,  and  brings  it  to  the  King, 
who  compares  it  with  the  answer  of  the  messengers, 
just  arrived  from  Rome,  and  determines  on  carrying 
out  the  design  as  the  Apostle  had  ordered. 


Alfred  to  the   Confessor.  43 

"The  ancient  church,  'situated  low,'  indicated  in  this 
vision  the  one  whose  attached  monastery  had  been 
destroyed  by  the  Danes,  but  its  little  church  remained, 
and  was  already  dear  to  the  Confessor,  not  only  from 
the  lovely  tradition  of  its  dedication  by  the  spirit  of 
St.  Peter;"  (you  must  read  that  for  yourselves ;)  "but 
also  because  of  two  miracles  happening  there  to  the 
King  himself. 

"  The  first  was  the  cure  of  a  cripple,  who  sat  in  the 
road  between  the  Palace  and  'the  Chapel  of  St.  Peter,' 
which  was  'near,'  and  who  explained  to  the  Chamber- 
lain Hugolin  that,  after  six  pilgrimages  to  Rome  in 
vain,  St.  Peter  had  promised  his  cure  if  the  King 
would,  on  his  own  royal  neck,  carry  him  to  the  Mon- 
astery. The  King  immediately  consented ;  and,  amidst 
the  scoffs  of  the  court,  bore  the  poor  man  to  the  steps 
of  the  High  Altar.  There  the  cripple  was  received  by 
Godric  the  sacristan,  and  walked  away  on  his  own 
restored  feet,  hanging  his  stool  on  the  wall  for  a 
trophy. 

"  Before  that  same  High  Altar  was  also  believed  to 
have  been  seen  one  of  the  Eucharistical  portents,  so 
frequent  in  the  Middle  Ages.  A  child,  'pure  and 
bright  like  a  spirit,'  appeared  to  the  King  in  the  sacra- 
mental elements.  Leofric,  Earl  of  Mercia,  who,  with 
his  famous  countess,  Godiva,  was  present,  saw  it  also. 

"  Such  as  these  were  the  motives  of  Edward.  Un- 
der their  influence  was  fixed  what  has  ever  since  been 
the  local  centre  of  the  English  monarchy." 


44  The  Pleasures  of  Faith. 

"Such  as  these  were  the  motives  of  Edward,"  says 
the  Dean.  Yes,  certainly ;  but  such  as  these  also,  first, 
were  the  acts  and  visions  of  Edward.  Take  care  that 
you  don't  slip  away,  by  the  help  of  the  glycerine  of 
the  word  "motives,"  into  fancying  that  all  these  tales 
are  only  the  after  colours  and  pictorial  metaphors  of 
sentimental  piety.  They  are  either  plain  truth  or  black 
lies ;  take  your  choice,  —  but  don't  tickle  and  treat 
yourselves  with  the  prettiness  or  the  grotesqueness  of 
them,  as  if  they  were  Anderssen's  fairy  tales.  Either 
the  King  did  carry  the  beggar  on  his  back,  or  he 
didn't ;  either  Godiva  rode  through  Coventry,  or  she 
didn't ;  either  the  Earl  Leofric  saw  the  vision  of  the 
bright  child  at  the  altar  —  or  he  lied  like  a  knave. 
Judge,  as  you  will ;  but  do  not  Doubt. 

"The  Abbey  was  fifteen  years  in  building.  The 
King  spent  upon  it  one-tenth  of  the  property  of  the 
kingdom.  It  was  to  be  a  marvel  of  its  kind.  As  in 
its  origin  it  bore  the  traces  of  the  fantastic  and  child- 
ish "  (I  must  pause,  to  ask  you  to  substitute  for  these 
blameful  terms,  'fantastic  and  childish,'  the  better  ones 
of  *  imaginative  and  pure ')  "  character  of  the  King 
and  of  the  age ;  in  its  architecture  it  bore  the  stamp 
of  the  peculiar  position  which  Edward  occupied  in 
English  history  between  Saxon  and  Norman.  By  birth 
he  was  a  Saxon,  but  in  all  else  he  was  a  foreigner. 
Accordingly  the  Church  at  Westminster  was  a  wide< 
sweeping  innovation  on  all  that  had  been  seen  before. 


Alfred  to  the   Confessor.  45 

^Destroying  the  old  building,'  he  says  in  his  charter, 
*I  have  built  up  a  new  one  from  the  very  foundation.' 
Its  fame  as  a  '  new  style  of  composition '  lingered  in 
the   minds   of  men   for   generations.     It  was  the  first 
cruciform  church  in  England,  from  which  all  the  rest  of 
like  shape  were  copied  —  an  expression  of  the  increas- 
ing hold  which,  in  the  tenth  century,  the  idea  of  the 
Crucifixion   had   laid   on    the    imagination   of    Europe. 
The  massive  roof  and  pillars  formed  a    contrast  with 
the  rude  wooden    rafters  and  beams  of    the   common 
Saxon  churches.     Its  very  size  —  occupying,  as  it  did, 
almost  the  whole  area  of  the  present  building  —  was 
in  itself  portentous.     The  deep  foundations,  of  large 
square  blocks  of  grey  stone,  were  duly  laid ;  the  east 
end  was  rounded  into  an  apse;   a  tower  rose  in  the 
centre,  crowned  by  a  cupola  of  wood.     At  the  western 
end  were  erected  two  srnaller  towers,  with  five  large 
bells.     The  hard  strong  stones  were  richly  sculptured  ; 
the  v/indows  were  filled  with  stained  glass;   the  roof 
was  covered  with  lead.     The  cloisters,  chapter-house, 
refectory,  dormitory,   the  infirmary,   with  its    spacious 
chapel,  if  not   completed  by  Edward,  were  all  begun, 
and  finished  m  the  next  generation  on  the  same  plan. 
This  structure,  venerable  as  it  would  be  if  it  had  lasted 
to  our  time,   has  almost  entirely  vanished.      Possibly 
one  vast  dark  arch  in  the  southern  transept,  certainly 
the    substructures  of   the  dormitory,   with  their  huge 
pillars,  'grand  and  regal  at  the  bases  and  capitals,'  the 


46  The  Pleasures  of  Faith. 

massive,  low-browed  passage  leading  from  the  great 
cloister  to  Little  Dean's  Yard,  and  some  portions  of 
the  refectory  and  of  the  infirmary  chapel,  remain  as 
specimens  of  the  work  which  astonished  the  last  age 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  the  first  age  of  the  Norman 
monarchy." 

Hitherto  I  have  read  to  you  with  only  supplemental 
comment.  But  in  the  next  following  passage,  with 
which  I  close  my  series  of  extracts,  sentence  after  sen- 
tence occurs,  at  which  as  I  read,  I  must  raise  my  hand, 
to  mark  it  for  following  deprecation,  or  denial. 

"  In  the  centre  of  Westminster  Abbey  thus  lies  its 
Founder,  and  such  is  the  story  of  its  foundation.  Even 
apart  from  the  legendary  elements  in  which  it  is  in- 
volved, it  is  impossible  not  to  be  struck  by  the  fantastic 
character  of  all  its  circumstances.  We  seem  to  be  in 
a  world  of  poetry."  (I  protest.  No.)  "  Edward  is  four 
centuries  later  than  Ethelbert  and  Augustine  ;  but  the 
origin  of  Canterbury  is  commonplace  and  prosaic  com- 
pared with  the  origin  of  Westminster."  (Yes,  that's 
true.)  "  We  can  hardly  imagine  a  figure  more  incon- 
gruous to  the  soberness  of  later  times  than  the  quaint, 
irresolute,  wayward  prince  whose  chief  characteristics 
have  just  been  described.  His  titles  of  Confessor  and 
Saint  belong  not  to  the  general  instincts  of  Christen- 
dom ;  but  to  the  most  transitory  feelings  of  the  age." 
(I  protest,  No.)  "  His  opinions,  his  prevailing  motives, 
were  such  as  in  no  part  of  modern  Europe  would  now 


Alfred  to  the   Confessor.  47 

be  shared  by  any  educated  teacher  or  ruler."  (That's 
true  enough.)  "  But  in  spite  of  these  irreconcilable 
differences,  there  was  a  solid  ground  for  the  charm 
which  he  exercised  over  his  contemporaries.  His 
childish  and  eccentric  fancies  have  passed  away  ; "  (I 
protest,  No ;)  "  but  his  innocent  faith  and  his  sympathy 
with  his  people  are  qualities  which,  even  in  our  altered 
times,  may  still  retain  their  place  in  the  economy  of 
the  world.  Westminster  Abbey,  so  we  hear  it  said, 
sometimes  with  a  cynical  sneer,  sometimes  with  a  tim- 
orous scruple,  has  admitted  within  its  walls  many  who 
have  been  great  without  being  good,  noble  with  a 
nobleness  of  the  earth  earthy,  worldly  with  the  wisdom 
of  this  world.  But  it  is  a  counterbalancing  reflection, 
that  the  central  tomb,  round  which  all  those  famous 
names  have  clustered,  contains  the  ashes  of  one  who, 
weak  and  erring  as  he  was,  rests  his  claims  of  inter- 
ment here,  not  on  any  act  of  power  or  fame,  but  only 
on  his  artless  piety  and  simple  goodness.  He,  towards 
whose  dust  was  attracted  the  fierce  Norman,  and  the 
proud  Plantagenet,  and  the  grasping  Tudor,  and  the 
fickle  Stuart,  even  the  Independent  Oliver,  the  Dutch 
William,  and  the  Hanoverian  George,  was  one  whose 
humble  graces  are  within  the  reach  of  every  man, 
woman,  and  child  of  every  time,  if  we  rightly  part  the 
immortal  substance  from  the  perishable  form." 

Now    I    have   read   you    these  passages  from  Dean 
Stanley  as  the  most  accurately  investigatory,  the  most 


48  The  Pleasures  of  Faith. 

generously  sympathetic,  the  most  reverently  acceptant 
account  of  these  days,  and  their  people,  which  you  can 
yet  find  in  any  English  history.  But  consider  now, 
point  by  point,  where  it  leaves  you.  You  are  told, 
first,  that  you  are  living  in  an  age  of  poetry.  But  the 
days  of  poetry  are  those  of  Shakespeare  and  Milton, 
not  of  Bede :  nay,  for  their  especial  wealth  in  melo- 
dious theology  and  beautifully  rhythmic  and  pathetic 
meditation,  perhaps  the  days  which  have  given  us 
'Hiawatha,'  'In  Memoriam,'  'The  Christian  Year,'  and 
the  'Soul's  Diary'  of  George  Macdonald,  may  be  not 
with  disgrace  compared  with  those  of  Caedmon.  And 
nothing  can  be  farther  different  from  the  temper,  noth- 
ing less  conscious  of  the  effort,  of  a  poet,  than  any 
finally  authentic  document  to  which  you  can  be  re- 
ferred for  the  relation  of  a  Saxon  miracle. 

I  will  read  you,  for  a  perfectly  typical  example,  an 
account  of  one  from  Bede's  'Life  of  St.  Cuthbert.' 
The  passage  is  a  favourite  one  of  my  own,  but  I  do  not 
in  the  least  anticipate  its  producing  upon  you  the  sol- 
emnizing effect  which  I  think  I  could  command  from 
reading,  instead,  a  piece  of  '  Marmion,'  'Manfred,'  or 
*Childe  Harold.' 

...  "He  had  one  day  left  his  cell  to  give  advice 
to  some  visitors  ;  and  when  he  had  finished,  he  said  to 
them,  '  I  must  now  go  in  again,  but  do  you,  as  you  are 
inclined  to  depart,  first  take  food ;  and  when  you  have 


Alfred  to  the  Confessor.  49 

cooked  and  eaten  that  goose  which  is  hanging  on  the 
wall,  go  on  board  your  vessel  in  God's  name  and  return 
home.'  He  then  uttered  a  prayer,  and,  having  blessed 
them,  went  in.  But  they,  as  he  had  bidden  them,  took 
some  food ;  but  having  enough  provisions  of  their 
own,  which  they  had  brought  with  them,  they  did  not 
touch  the  goose. 

"  But  when  they  had  refreshed  themselves  they  tried 
to  go  on  board  their  vessel,  but  a  sudden  storm  utterly 
prevented  them  from  putting  to  sea.  They  were  thus 
detained  seven  days  in  the  island  by  the  roughness  of 
the  waves,  and  yet  they  could  not  call  to  mind  what 
fault  they  had  committed.  They  therefore  returned  to 
have  an  interview  with  the  holy  father,  and  to  lament 
to  him  their  detention.  He  exhorted  them  to  be  pa- 
tient, and  on  the  seventh  day  came  out  to  console  their 
sorrow,  and  to  give  them,  pious  exhortations.  When, 
however,  he  had  entered  the  house  in  which  they  were 
stopping,  and  saw  that  the  goose  was  not  eaten,  he 
reproved  their  disobedience  with  mild  countenance  and 
in  gentle  language :  *  Have  you  not  left  the  goose  still 
hanging  in  its  place  .-*  What  wonder  is  it  that  the 
storm  has  prevented  your  departure }  Put  it  immedi- 
ately into  the  caldron,  and  boil  and  eat  it,  that  the  sea 
may  become  tranquil,  and  you  may  return  home.' 

"  They  immediately  did  as  he  commanded ;  and  it 
happened  most  wonderfully  that  the  moment  the  kettle 
began  to  boil  the  wind  began  to  cease,  and  the  waves 


50  TJie  Pleasures  of  l^aitn. 

to  be  still.  Having  finished  their  repast,  and  seeing 
that  the  sea  was  calm,  they  went  on  board,  and  to  their 
great  delight,  though  with  shame  for  their  neglect, 
reached  home  with  a  fair  wind.  Now  this,  as  I  have 
related,  I  did  not  pick  up  from  any  chance  authority, 
but  I  had  it  from  one  of  those  who  were  present,  a 
most  reverend  monk  and  priest  of  the  same  monastery, 
Cynemund.  who  still  lives,  known  to  many  in  the 
neighbourhood  for  his  years  and  the  purity  of  his 
life." 

I  hope  that  the  memory  of  this  story,  which,  think- 
ing it  myself  an  extremely  pretty  one,  I  have  given 
you,  not  only  for  a  l:\-pe  of  sincerity  and  simplicity,  but 
for  an  illustration  of  obedience,  may  at  all  events  quit 
you.  for  good  and  all,  of  the  notion  that  the  believers 
and  witnesses  of  miracle  were  poetical  persons.  Say- 
mg  no  more  on  the  head  of  that  allegation,  I  proceed 
to  the  Dean's  second  one,  which  I  cannot  but  interpret 
as  also  intended  to  be  injurious,  —  that  they  w^ere  art- 
less and  childish  ones  ;  and  that  because  of  this  rude- 
ness and  puerility,  their  motives  and  opinions  would 
not  be  shared  by  any  statesmen  of  the  present  day. 

It  is  perfectly  true  that  Edward  the  Confessor  was 
himself  in  many  respects  of  really  childish  tempera- 
ment ;  not  therefore,  perhaps,  as  I  before  suggested  to 
you,  less  venerable.  But  the  age  of  which  we  are  ex- 
amining the  progress,  was  by  no  means  represented  or 


Alfred  to  the   Confessor.  51 

governed  by  men  of  similar  disposition.  It  was  emi- 
nently productive  of  —  it  was  altogether  governed, 
guided,  and  instructed  by  —  men  of  the  widest  and 
most  brilliant  faculties,  whether  constructive  or  specu- 
lative, that  the  world  till  then  had  seen;  men  whose 
acts  became  the  romance,  whose  thoughts  the  wisdom, 
and  whose  arts  the  treasure,  of  a  thousand  years  of 
futurity, 

I  warned  you  at  the  close  of  last  lecture  against 
the  too  agreeable  vanity  of  supposing  that  the  Evan- 
gelization of  the  world  began  at  St.  Martin's,  Canter- 
bur}^',  Again  and  again  3'ou  will  indeed  find  the  stream 
of  the  Gospel  contracting  itself  into  narrow  channels, 
and  appearing,  after  long-concealed  filtration,  through 
veins  of  unmeasured  rock,  with  the  bright  resilience 
of  a  mountain  spring.  But  you  will  find  it  the  only 
candid,  and  therefore  the  only  wise,  way  of  research, 
to  look  in  each  era  of  Christendom  for  the  minds  of 
culminating  power  in  all  its  brotherhood  of  nations ; 
and,  careless  of  local  impulse,  momentary  zeal,  pictur- 
esque incident,  or  vaunted  miracle,  to  fasten  your  at- 
tention upon  the  force  of  character  in  the  men,  whom, 
over  each  newly-converted  race.  Heaven  visibly  sets  for 
its  shepherds  and  kings,  to  bring  forth  judgment  unto 
victory.  Of  these  I  will  name  to  you,  as  messengers 
of  God  and  masters  of  men,  five  monks  and  five  kings ; 
in  whose  arms  during  the  range  of  swiftly  gainful 
centuries  which  we  are  following,  the  life  of  the  world 


52  The  Pleasures  of  Faith. 

lay  as  a  nursling  babe.  Remember,  in  their  successive 
order,  —  of  monks,  St.  Jerome,  St.  Augustine,  St.  Mar- 
tin, St.  Benedict,  and  St.  Gregory;  of  kings,  —  and 
your  national  vanity  may  be  surely  enough  appeased  in 
recognizing  two  of  them  for  Saxon,  —  Theodoric,  Char- 
lemagne, Alfred,  Canute,  and  the  Confessor.  I  will 
read  three  passages  to  you,  out  of  the  literal  words  of 
three  of  these  ten  men,  without  saying  whose  they  are, 
that  you^may  compare  them  with  the  best  and  most 
exalted  you  have  read  expressing  the  philosophy,  the 
religion,  and  the  policy  of  to-day,  — from  which  I  admit, 
with  Dean  Stanley,  but  with  a  far  different  meaning 
from  his,  that  they  are  indeed  separate  for  evermore. 
I  give  you  first,  for  an  example  of  Philosophy,  a 
single  sentence,  containing  all  —  so  far  as  I  can  myself 
discern  —  that  it  is  possible  for  us  to  know,  or  well  for 
us  to  believe,  respecting  the  world  and  its  laws. 

"  Of  God's  Universal  Providence,  ruling  all,  and  Com- 
prising ALL. 

"Wherefore  the  great  and  mighty  God;  He  that  made 
man  a  reasonable  creature  of  soul  and  body,  and  He  that  did 
neither  let  him  pass  unpunished  for  his  sin,  nor  yet  excluded 
him  from  mercy;  He  that  gave,  both  unto  good  and  bad, 
essence  with  the  stones,  power  of  production  with  the  trees, 
senses  with  the  beasts  of  the  field,  and  understanding  with  the 
angels ;  He  from  whom  is  all  being,  beauty,  form,  and  order, 
number,  weight,  and   measure;    He  from  whom  all   nature. 


Alfred  to  the   Confessor.  53 

mean  and  excellent,  all  seeds  of  form,  all  forms  of  seed,  all 
motion,  both  of  forms  and  seeds,  derive  and  have  being ;  He 
that  gave  flesh  the  Oiiginal  beauty,  strength,  propagation,  form 
and  shape,  health  and  symmetry ;  He  that  gave  the  unreason- 
able soul,  sense,  memory,  and  appetite ;  the  reasonable,  be- 
sides these,  fantasy,  understanding,  and  will;  He,  I  say, 
having  left  neither  heaven,  nor  earth,  nor  angel,  nor  man,  no, 
nor  the  most  base  and  contemptible  creature,  neither  the  bird's 
feather,  nor  the  herb's  flower,  nor  the  tree's  leaf,  without  the 
true  harmony  of  their  parts,  and  peaceful  concord  of  compo- 
sition :  —  It  is  in  no  way  credible  that  He  would  leave  the 
kingdoms  of  men  and  their  bondages  and  freedom  loose  and 
uncomprised  in  the  laws  of  His  eternal  providence."  * 

This  for  the  philosophy,  f  Next,  I  take  for  example 
of  the  Religion  of  our  ancestors,  a  prayer,  personally 
and  passionately  offered  to  the  Deity  conceived  as  you 
have  this  moment  heard. . 

"  O  Thou  who  art  the  Father  of  that  Son  which  has  awak- 
ened us,  and  yet  urgeth  us  out  of  the  sleep  of  our  sins,  and 
exhorteth  us  that  we  become  Thine  ;  "  (note  you  that,  for  ap- 
prehension of  what  Redemption  means,  against  your  base  and 
cowardly  modem  notion  of  'scaping  whipping.  Not  to  take 
away  the  Punishment  of  Sin,  but  by  His  Resurrection  to  raise 
us  out  of  the  sleep  of  sin  itself !     Compare  the  legend  at  the 

*  From  St.  Augustine's  '  Citle  of  God,'  Book  V.,  ch.  xi.  (English  trans., 
printed  by  George  Eld,  1610.) 

t  Here  one  of  the  "Stones  of  Westminster"  was  shown  and  commented 
on. 


54  The  Pleasures  of  Faith. 

feet  of  the  Lion  of  the  Tribe  of  Judah  in  the  golden  Gospel 
of  Charles  le  Chauve  *  :  — 

"Hic  Leo  Surgendo  portas  confregit  Averni 
Qui  nunquam  dormit,  nusquam  dormitat  in  ^vum;  ") 

"  to  Thee,  Lord,  I  pray,  who  art  the  supreme  truth ;  for  all  the 
truth  that  is,  is  truth  from  Thee.  Thee  I  implore,  O  Lord, 
who  art  the  highest  wisdom.  Through  Thee  are  wise  all  those 
that  are  so.  Thou  art  the  true  life,  and  through  Thee  are 
living  all  those  that  are  so.  Thou  art  the  supreme  felicity, 
and  from  Thee  all  have  become  happy  that  are  so.  Thou  art 
the  highest  good,  and  from  Thee  all  beauty  springs.  Thou 
art  the  intellectual  light,  and  from  Thee  man  derives  his  un- 
derstanding. 

"  To  Thee,  O  God,  I  call  and  speak.  Hear,  O  hear  me. 
Lord  !  for  Thou  art  my  God  and  my  Lord ;  my  Father  and 
my  Creator ;  my  ruler  and  my  hope ;  my  wealth  and  my  hon- 
our ;  my  house,  my  country,  my  salvation,  and  my  life  !  Hear, 
hear  me,  O  Lord  !  Few  of  Thy  servants  comprehend  Thee. 
But  Thee  alone  I  love,-\  indeed,  above  all  other  things.  Thee 
I  seek :  Thee  I  will  follow :  Thee  I  am  ready  to  serve.  Un- 
der Thy  power  I  desire  to  abide,  for  Thou  alone  art  the  Sov- 
ereign of  all.     I  pray  Thee  to  command  me  as  Thou  wilt." 

You  see  this  prayer  is  simply  the  expansion  of  that 
clause  of  the  Lord's  Prayer  which  most  men  eagerly 

*  At  Munich :  the  leaf  has  been  exquisitely  drawn  and  legend  communicated 
to  me  by  Professor  Westwood.     It  is  written  in  gold  on  purple. 

t  Meaning  —  not  that  he  is  of  those  few,  but  that,  without  comprehending,  at 
least,  as  a  dog,  he  can  love. 


Alfred  to  the   Confessor.  55 

omit  from  it,  — Fiat  voluntas  tiia.  In  being  so,  it  sums 

the  Christian  prayer  of  all  ages.  See  now,  in  the  third 

place,  how  far  this  king's  letter  I  am  going  to  read  to 
you  sums  also  Christian  Policy. 

"  Wherefore  I  render  high  thanks  to  Almighty  God,  for  the 
happy  accomplishment  of  all  the  desires  which  I  have  set 
before  me,  and  for  the  satisfying  of  my  every  wish. 

"  Now  therefore,  be  it  known  to  you  all,  that  to  Almighty 
God  Himself  I  have,  on  my  knees,  devoted  my  life,  to  the 
end  that  in  all  things  I  may  do  justice,  and  with  justice  and 
Tightness  rule  the  kingdoms  and  peoples  under  me ;  through- 
out everything  preserving  an  impartial  judgment.  If,  hereto- 
fore, I  have,  through  being,  as  young  men  are,  impulsive  or 
careless,  done  anything  unjust,  I  mean,  with  God's  help,  to 
lose  no  time  in  remedying  my  fault.  To  which  end  I  call 
to  witness  my  counsellors,  to  whom  I  have  entrusted  the  coun- 
sels of  the  kingdom,  and  I  charge  them  that  by  no  means, 
be  it  through  fear  of  me,  or  the  favour  of  any  other  powerful 
personage,  to  consent  to  any  injustice,  or  to  suffer  any  to  shoot 
out  in  any  part  of  my  kingdom.  I  charge  all  my  viscounts 
and  those  set  over  my  whole  kingdom,  as  they  wish  to  keep 
my  friendship  or  their  own  safety,  to  use  no  unjust  force  to 
any  man,  rich  or  poor ;  let  all  men,  noble  and  not  noble,  rich 
and  poor  alike,  be  able  to  obtain  their  rights  under  the  law's 
justice  ;  and  from  that  law  let  there  be  no  deviation,  either 
to  favour  the  king  or  any  powerful  person,  nor  to  raise  money 
for  me.  I  have  no  need  of  money  raised  by  what  is  unfair. 
I  also  would  have  you  know  that  I  go  now  to  make  peace 


56  The  Pleasures  of  Faith. 

and  firm  treaty  by  the  counsels  of  all  my  subjects,  with  those 
nations  and  people  who  wished,  had  it  been  possible  for  them 
to  do  so,  which  it  was  not,  to  deprive  us  alike,  of  kingdom 
and  of  life.  God  brought  down  their  strength  to  nought :  and 
may  He  of  His  benign  love  preserve  us  on  our  throne  and  in 
honour.  Lastly,  when  I  have  made  peace  with  the  neighbour- 
ing nations,  and  settled  and  pacified  all  my  dominions  in  the 
East,  so  that  we  may  nowhere  have  any  war  or  enmity  to  fear, 
I  mean  to  come  to  England  this  summer,  as  soon  as  I  can  fit 
out  vessels  to  sail.  My  reason,  however,  in  sending  this  letter 
first  is  to  let  all  the  people  of  my  kingdom  share  in  the  joy 
of  my  welfare  :  for  as  you  yourselves  know,  I  have  never  spared 
myself  or  my  labour ;  nor  will  I  ever  do  so,  where  my  people 
are  really  in  want  of  some  good  that  I  can  do  them." 

What  think  you  now,  in  candour  and  honour,  you 
youth  of  the  latter  days,  —  what  think  you  of  these 
types  of  the  thought,  devotion,  and  government,  which 
not  in  words,  but  pregnant  and  perpetual  fact,  ani- 
mated these  which  you  have  been  accustomed  to  call 
the  Dark  Ages  .-* 

The  Philosophy  is  Augustine's  ;  the  Prayer  Alfred's  ; 
and  the  Letter  Canute's. 

And,  whatever  you  may  feel  respecting  the  beauty 
or  wisdom  of  these  sayings,  be  assured  of  one  thing 
above  all,  that  they  are  sincere ;  and  of  another,  less 
often  observed,  that  they  are  joyful. 

Be  assured,  in  the  first  place,  that  they  are  sincere. 
The  ideas  of  diplomacy  and  priestcraft  are  of  recent 


Alfred  to  the  Confessor.  57 

times.  No  false  knight  or  lying  priest  ever  prospered, 
I  believe,  in  any  age,  but  certainly  not  in  the  dark 
ones.  ]\Ien  prospered  then,  only  in  following  openly- 
declared  purposes,  and  preaching  candidly  beloved  and 
trusted  creeds. 

And  that  they  did  so  prosper,  in  the  degree  in  which 
they  accepted  and  proclaimed  the  Christian  Gospel, 
may  be  seen  by  any  of  you  in  your  historical  reading, 
however  partial,  if  only  you  will  admit  the  idea  that  it 
could  be  so,  and  was  likely  to  be  so.  You  are  all  of 
you  in  the  habit  of  supposing  that  temporal  prosperity 
is  owing  either  to  worldly  chance  or  to  worldly  pru- 
dence ;  and  is  never  granted  in  any  visible  relation  to 
states  of  religious  temper.  Put  that  treacherous  doubt 
away  from  you,  with  disdain ;  take  for  basis  of  reason- 
ing the  noble  postulate,  that  the  elements  of  Christian 
faith  are  sound, — instead  of  the  base  one,  that  they 
are  deceptive  ;  reread  the  great  story  of  the  world  in 
that  light,  and  see  what  a  vividly  real,  yet  miraculous 
tenor,  it  will  then  bear  to  you. 

Their  faith  then,  I  tell  you  first,  was  sincere ;  I  tell 
you  secondly  that  it  was,  in  a  degree  few  of  us  can  now 
conceive,  joyful.  We  continually  hear  of  the  trials, 
sometimes  of  the  victories,  of  Faith, — but  scarcely 
ever  of  its  pleasures.  Whereas,  at  this  time,  you  will 
find  that  the  chief  delight  of  all  good  men  was  in  the 
recognition  of  the  goodness  and  wisdom  of  the  Master, 
who  had  come  to  dwell  with  them  upon  earth.     It  is 


5 8  The  Pleasures  of  Faith. 

almost  impossible  for  you  to  conceive  the  vividness  of 
this  sense  in  them ;  it  is  totally  impossible  for  you  to 
conceive  the  comfort,  peace,  and  force  of  it.  In  every- 
thing that  you  now  do  or  seek,  you  expose  yourselves 
to  countless  miseries  of  shame  and  disappointment, 
because  in  your  doing  you  depend  on  nothing  but  your 
own  powers,  and  in  seeking  choose  only  your  own 
gratification.  You  cannot  for  the  most  part  conceive 
of  any  work  but  for  your  own  Interests,  or  the  interests 
of  others  about  whom  you  are  anxious  in  the  same 
faithless  way;  everything  about  which  passion  is  ex- 
cited in  you  or  skill  exerted  is  some  object  of  mate- 
rial life,  and  the  idea  of  doing  anything  except  for  your 
own  praise  or  profit  has  narrowed  itself  into  little  more 
than  the  precentor's  invitation  to  the  company  with 
little  voice  and  less  practice  to  "  sing  to  the  praise  and 
glory  of  God." 

I  have  said  that  you  cannot  imagine  the  feeling  of 
the  energy  of  daily  life  applied  in  the  real  meaning  of 
those  words.  You  cannot  imagine  it,  but  you  can 
prove  it.  Are  any  of  you  willing,  simply  as  a  philo- 
sophical experiment  in  the  greatest  of  sciences,  to 
adopt  the  principles  and  feelings  of  these  men  of  a 
thousand  years  ago  for  a  given  time,  say  for  a  year? 
It  cannot  possibly  do  you  any  harm  to  try,  and  you 
cannot  possibly  learn  what  is  true  in  these  things, 
without  trying.  If  after  a  year's  experience  of  such 
method  you  find  yourself   no  happier  than  before,  at 


Alfred  to  the   Confessor.  59 

least  you  will  be  able  to  support  your  present  opinions 
at  once  with  more  grace  and  more  modesty ;  having 
conceded  the  trial  it  asked  for,  to  the  opposite  side. 
Nor  in  acting  temporarily  on  a  faith  you  do  not  sec  to 
be  reasonable,  do  you  compromise  your  own  integrity 
more,  than  in  conducting,  under  a  chemist's  directions, 
an  experiment  of  which  he  foretells  inexplicable  conse- 
quences. And  you  need  not  doubt  the  power  you 
possess  over  your  own  minds  to  do  this.  Were  faith 
not  voluntary,  it  could  not  be  praised,  and  would  not 
be  rewarded. 

If  you  are  minded  thus  to  try,  begin  each  day  with 
Alfred's  prayer, — fiat  voluntas  tua ;  resolving  that  you 
will  stand  to  it,  and  that  nothing  that  happens  in  the 
course  of  the  day  shall  displease  you.  Then  set  to  any 
work  you  have  in  hand  with  the  sifted  and  purified 
resolution  that  ambition  shall  not  mix  with  it,  nor  love 
of  gain,  nor  desire  of  pleasure  more  than  is  appointed 
for  }(0u;  and  that  no  anxiety  shall  touch  you  as  to  its 
issue,  nor  any  impatience  nor  regret  if  it  fail.  Imagine 
that  the  thing  is  being  done  through  you,  not  by  you ; 
that  the  good  of  it  may  never  be  known,  but  that  at 
least,  unless  by  your  rebellion  or  foolishness,  there  can 
come  no  evil  into  it,  nor  wrong  chance  to  it.  Resolve 
also  with  steady  industry  to  do  what  you  can  for  the 
help  of  your  country  and  its  honour,  and  the  honour  of 
its  God ;  and  that  you  will  not  join  hands  in  its  iniquity, 
nor  turn  aside  from  its  misery ;  and  that  in  all  you  do 


6o  The  Pleasures  of  Faith. 

and  feel  you  will  look  frankly  for  the  immediate  help 
and  direction,  and  to  your  own  consciences,  expressed 
approval,  of  God.  Live  thus,  and  believe,  and  with 
swiftness  of  answer  proportioned  to  the  frankness  of 
the  trust,  most  surely  the  God  of  hope  will  fill  you  with 
all  joy  and  peace  in  believing. 

But,  if  you  will  not  do  this,  if  you  have  not  courage 
nor  heart  enough  to  break  away  the  fetters  of  earth, 
and  take  up  the  sensual  bed  of  it,  and  walk ;  if  you  say 
that  you  are  bound  to  win  this  thing,  and  become  the 
other  thing,  and  that  the  wishes  of  your  friends,  —  and 
the  interests  of  your  family, — and  the  bias  of  your 
genius,  —  and  the  expectations  of  your  college,  —  and 
all  the  rest  of  the  bow-wow-wow  of  the  wild  dog-world, 
must  be  attended  to,  whether  you  like  it  or  no, — then, 
at  least,  for  shame  give  up  talk  about  being  free  or 
independent  creatures  ;  recognize  yourselves  for  slaves 
in  whom  the  thoughts  are  put  in  ward  with  their 
bodies,  and  their  hearts  manacled  with  their  hands : 
and  then  at  least  also,  for  shame,  if  you  refuse  to  be- 
lieve that  ever  there  were  men  who  gave  their  souls  to 
God,  —  know  and  confess  how  surely  there  are  those 
who  sell  them  to  His  adversary. 


LECTURE    III. 


THE    PLEASURES    OF    DEED. 
cAlfred  to  Cceur  de  Lion. 


LECTURE  III. 
THE  PLEASURES  OF  DEED. 


ALFRED   TO   CCEUR   DE   LION. 

IT  was  my  endeavour,  in  the  preceding  lecture,  to 
vindicate  the  thoughts  and  arts  of  our  Saxon  an- 
cestors from  whatever  scorn  might  lie  coucned  under 
the  terms  applied  to  them  by  Dean  Stanley,  — '  fantas- 
tic,' and  'childish.'  To-day  my  task  must  be  carried 
forward,  first,  in  asserting  the  grace  in  fantasy,  and 
the  force  in  infancy,  of  the  English  mind,  before  the 
Conquest,  against  the  allegations  contained  in  the 
final  passage  of  Dean  Stanley's  description  of  the  first 
founded  Westminster ;  a  passage  which  accepts  and 
asserts,  more  distinctly  than  any  other  equally  brief 
statement  I  have  met  with,  the  to  my  mind  extremely 
disputable  theory,  that  the  Norman  invasion  was  in 
every  respect  a  sanitary,  moral,  and  intellectual  bless- 
ing to  England,  and  that  the  arrow  which  slew  her 
Harold  was  indeed  the  Arrow  of  the  Lord's  deliv- 
erance. 

6s 


64  The  Pleasures  of  Deed, 

"  The  Abbey  itself,"  says  Dean  Stanley,  — "  the 
chief  work  of  the  Confessor's  life,  —  was  the  portent 
of  the  mighty  future.  When  Harold  stood  beside  his 
sister  Edith,  on  the  day  of  the  dedication,  and  signed 
his  name  with  hers  as  witness  to  the  Charter  of  the 
Abbey,  he  might  have  seen  that  he  was  sealing  his 
own  doom,  and  preparing  for  his  own  destruction.  The 
solid  pillars,  the  ponderous  arches,  the  huge  edifice, 
with  triple  tower  and  sculptured  stones  and  storied  win- 
dows, that  arose  in  the  place  and  in  the  midst  of  the 
humble  wooden  churches  and  wattled  tenements  of  the 
Saxon  period,  might  have  warned  the  nobles  who  were 
present  that  the  days  of  their  rule  were  numbered, 
and  that  the  avenging,  civilizing,  stimulating  hand  of 
another  and  a  mightier  race  was  at  work,  which  would 
change  the  whole  face  of  their  language,  their  manners, 
their  Church,  and  their  commonwealth.  The  Abbey, 
so  far  exceeding  the  demands  of  the  dull  and  stagnant 
minds  of  our  Anglo-Saxon  ancestors,  was  founded  not 
only  in  faith,  but  in  hope :  in  the  hope  that  England 
had  yet  a  glorious  career  to  run ;  that  the  line  of  her 
sovereigns  would  not  be  broken,  even  when  the  race  of 
Alfred  had  ceased  to  reign." 

There  must  surely  be  some  among  my  hearers  who 
are  startled,  if  not  offended,  at  being  told  in  the  terms 
which  I  emphasized  in  this  sentence,  that  the  minds 
of  our  Saxon  fathers  were,  although  fantastic,  dull, 
and,  although  childish,  stagnant ;  that  farther,  in  their 


Alfred  to   Cociir  de  Lion.  65 

fantastic  stagnation,  they  were  savage, — and  in  their 
innocent  duHness,  criminal ;  so  that  the  future  charac- 
ter and  fortune  of  the  race  depended  on  the  critical 
advent  of  the  didactic  and  disciplinarian  Norman  baron, 
at  once  to  polish  them,  stimulate,  and  chastise. 

Before  I  venture  to  say  a  word  in  distinct  arrest  of 
this  judgment,  I  will  give  you  a  chart,  as  clear  as  the 
facts  observed  in  the  two  previous  lectures  allow,  of 
the  state  and  prospects  of  the  Saxons,  when  this  vio- 
lent benediction  of  conquest  happened  to  them  :  and 
especially  I  would  rescue,  in  the  measure  that  justice 
bids,  the  memory  even  of  their  Pagan  religion  from 
the  general  scorn  in  which  I  used  Carlyle's  description 
of  the  idol  of  ancient  Prussia  as  universally  exponent  of 
the  temper  of  Northern  devotion.  That  Triglaph,  or 
Triglyph  Idol,  (derivation  of  Triglaph  wholly  unknown 
to  me  —  I  use  Triglyph  only  for  my  own  handiest  epi- 
thet), last  set  up,  on  what  is  now  St.  Mary's  hill  in 
Brandenburg,  in  1023,  belonged  indeed  to  a  people 
wonderfully  like  the  Saxons,  —  geographically  their 
close  neighbours,  —  in  habits  of  life,  and  aspect  of 
native  land,  scarcely  distinguishable  from  them,  —  in 
Carlyle's  words,  a  "  strong-boned,  iracund,  herdsman 
and  fisher  people,  highly  averse  to  be  interfered  with, 
in  their  religion  especially,  and  inhabiting  a  moory  flat 
country,  full  of  lakes  and  woods,  but  with  plenty  also 
of  alluvial  mud,  grassy,  frugiferous,  apt  for  the  plough  " 
—  in  all  things  like  the  Saxons,  except,  as  I  read  the 


66  The  Pleasures  of  Deed. 

matter,  in  that  '  aversion  to  be  interfered  with  '  which 
you  modern  English  think  an  especially  Saxon  charac- 
ter in  you,  —  but  which  is,  on  the  contrary,  you  will 
find  on  examination,  by  no  means  Saxon ;  but  only 
Wendisch,  Czech,  Serbic,  Sclavic,  —  other  hard  names 
I  could  easily  find  for  it  among  the  tribes  of  that  vehe- 
mently heathen  old  Preussen  —  "  resolutely  worshipful 
of  places  of  oak  trees,  of  wooden  or  stone  idols,  of 
Bangputtis,  Patkullos,  and  I  know  not  what  diabolic 
dumb  blocks."  Your  English  "dislike  to  be  interfered 
with "  is  in  absolute  fellowship  with  these,  but  only 
gathers  itself  in  its  places  of  Stalks,  or  chimneys,  in- 
stead of  oak  trees,  round  its  idols  of  iron,  instead  of 
wood,  diabolically  vocal  now ;  strident,  and  sibilant, 
instead  of  dumb. 

Far  other  than  these,  their  neighbour  Saxons,  Jutes 
and  Angles!  —  tribes  between  whom  the  distinctions 
are  of  no  moment  whatsoever,  except  that  an  English 
boy  or  girl  may  with  grace  remember  that  *  Old  Eng- 
land,' exactly  and  strictly  so  called,  was  the  small  dis- 
trict in  the  extreme  south  of  Denmark,  totally  with  its 
islands  estimable  at  sixty  miles  square  of  dead  flat  land. 
Directly  south  of  it,  the  definitely  so-called  Saxons 
held  the  western  shore  of  Holstein,  with  the  estuary 
of  the  Elbe,  and  the  sea-mark  isle,  Heligoland.  But 
since  the  principal  temple  of  Saxon  worship  was  close 
to  Leipsic,*  we  may  include  under  our  general  term, 

*  Turner,  vol.  i.,  p.  223. 


Alfred  to   Coeur  de  Lioji.  67 

Saxons,  the  inhabitants  of  the  whole  level  district  of 
North  Germany,  from  the  Gulf  of  Flensburg  to  the 
Hartz ;  and,  eastward,  all  the  country  watered  by  the 
Elbe  as  far  as  Saxon  Switzerland. 

Of  the  character  of  this  race  I  will  not  here  speak 
at  any  length  :  only  note  of  it  this  essential  point,  that 
their  religion  was  at  once  more  practical  and  more  im- 
aginative than  that  of  the  Norwegian  peninsula ;  the 
Norse  religion  being  the  conception  rather  of  natural 
than  moral  powers,  but  the  Saxon,  primarily  of  moral, 
as  the  lords  of  natural  —  their  central  divine  image, 
Irminsul,*  holding  the  standard  of  peace  in  her  right 
hand,  a  balance  in  her  left.  Such  a  religion  may  de- 
generate into  mere  slaughter  and  rapine ;  but  it  has 
the  making  in  it  of  the  noblest  men. 

More  practical  at  all  events,  whether  for  good  or 
evil,  in  this  trust  in  a  future  reward  for  courage  and 
purity,  than  the  mere  Scandinavian  awe  of  existing 
Earth  and  Cloud,  the  Saxon  religion  was  also  more 
imaginative,  in  its  nearer  conception  of  human  feeling 
in  divine  creatures.  And  when  this  wide  hope  and 
high  reverence  had  distinct  objects  of  worship  and 
prayer,  offered  to  them  by  Christianity,  the  Saxons 
easily  became  pure,  passionate,  and  thoughtful  Chris- 
tians ;  while  the  Normans,  to  the  last,  had  the  greatest 
difficulty  in  apprehending  the  Christian  teaching  of  the 
Franks,  and  still  deny  the  power  of  Christianity,  even 
when  they  have  become  inveterate  in  its  form. 

*  Properly  plural  'Images' — Irminsul  and  Irminsula. 


68  The  Pleasures  of  Deed. 

Quite  the  deepest-thoughted  creatures  of  the  then 
animate  world,  it  seems  to  me,  these  Saxon  ploughmen 
of  the  sand  or  the  sea,  with  their  worshipped  deity  of 
Beauty  and  Justice,  a  red  rose  on  her  banner,  for  best 
of  gifts,  and  in  her  right  hand,  instead  of  a  sword,  a 
balance,  for  due  doom,  without  wrath,  —  of  retribution 
in  her  left.  Far  other  than  the  Wends,  though  stub- 
born enough,  they  too,  in  battle  rank,  —  seven  times 
rising  from  defeat  against  Charlemagne,  and  unsubdued 
but  by  death  —  yet,  by  no  means  in  that  John  Bull's 
manner  of  yours,  'averse  to  be  interfered  with,'  in  their 
opinions,  or  their  religion.  Eagerly  docile  on  the 
contrary  —  joyfully  reverent  —  instantly  and  gratefully 
acceptant  of  whatever  better  insight  or  oversight  a 
stranger  could  bring  them,  of  the  things  of  God  or 
man. 

And  let  me  here  ask  you  especially  to  take  account 
of  that  origin  of  the  true  bearing  of  the  Flag  of 
England,  the  Red  Rose.  Her  own  madness  defiled 
afterwards  alike  the  white  and  red,  into  images  of  the 
paleness,  or  the  crimson,  of  death  ;  but  the  Saxon  Rose 
was  the  symbol  of  heavenly  beauty  and  peace. 

I  told  you  in  my  first  lecture  that  one  swift  require- 
ment in  our  school  would  be  to  produce  a  beautiful 
map  of  England,  including  old  Northumberland,  giving 
the  whole  country,  in  its  real  geography,  between  the 
Frith  of  Forth  and  Straits  of  Dover,  and  with  only  six 
sites  of  habitation  given,  besides  those  of  Edinburgh 


Alfred  to   Cceiir  de  Lio7i.  69 

and  London, — namely,  those  of  Canterbury  and  Win- 
chester, York  and  Lancaster,  Holy  Island  and  IMelrose ; 
the  latter  instead  of  lona,  because,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  influence  of  St.  Columba  expires  with  the  advance 
of  Christianity,  while  that  of  Cuthbert  of  Melrose  con- 
nects itself  with  the  most  sacred  feelings  of  the  entire 
Northumbrian  kingdom,  and  Scottish  border,  down 
to  the  days  of  Scott  —  wreathing  also  into  its  circle 
many  of  the  legends  of  Arthur.  Will  you  forgive  my 
connecting  the  personal  memory  of  having  once  had 
a  wild  rose  gathered  for  me,  in  the  glen  of  Thomas  th6 
Rhymer,  by  the  daughter  of  one  of  the  few  remaining 
Cathohc  houses  of  Scotland,  with  the  pleasure  I  have 
in  reading  to  you  this  following  true  account  of  the 
origin  of  the  name  of  St.  Cuthbert's  birthplace; — the 
rather  because  I  owe  it  to  friendship  of  the  same  date, 
with  Mr.  Cockburn  Muir,  of  Melrose. 

"To  those  who  have  eyes  to  read  it,"  says  Mr.  Muir, 
"  the  name  '  Melrose '  is  written  full  and  fair,  on  the 
fair  face  of  all  this  reach  of  the  valley.  The  name  is 
anciently  spelt  Mailros,  and  later,  Malros,  never  Mul- 
ros ;  ('  Mul '  being  the  Celtic  word  taken  to  mean 
'  bare ').  Ros  is  Rose ;  the  forms  Meal  or  Mol  imply 
great  quantity  or  number.  Thus  Malros  means  the 
place  of  many  roses, 

"  This  is  precisely  the  notable  characteristic  of  the 
neighbourhood.  The  wild  rose  is  indigenous.  There 
is  no  nook  nor  cranny,  no  bank  nor  brae,  which  is  not, 


70  The  Pleasures  of  Deed. 

in  the  time  of  roses,  ablaze  with  their  exuberant  loveli- 
ness. In  gardens,  the  cultured  rose  is  so  prolific  that 
it  spreads  literally  like  a  weed.  But  it  is  worth  sug- 
gestion that  the  word  may  be  of  the  same  stock  as  the 
Hebrew  rosh  (translated  ros  by  the  Septuagint),  mean- 
ing chief,  principal,  while  it  is  also  the  name  of  some 
flower ;  but  of  which  flower  is  now  unknown.  Affini- 
ties of  rosh  are  not  far  to  seek ;  Sanskrit,  Raji^, 
Ra(]2i)ni ;  Latin,  Rex,  Re£-{ma.)." 

I  leave  it  to  Professor  Max  Muller  to  certify  or  cor- 
rect for  you  the  details  of  Mr.  Cockburn's  research,*  — 
this  main  head  of  it  I  can  positively  confirm,  that  in  old 


*  I  had  not  time  to  quote  it  fully  in  the  lecture ;  and  in  my  ignorance,  alike 
of  Keltic  and  Hebrew,  can  only  submit  it  here  to  the  reader's  examination. 
"  The  ancient  Cognizance  of  the  town  confirms  this  etymology  beyond  doubt, 
with  customary  heraldic  precision.  The  shield  bears  a  J?ose ;  with  a  Maul,  as 
the  exact  phonetic  equivalent  for  the  expletive.  If  the  herald  had  needed  to 
express  '  bare  promontory,'  quite  certainly  he  would  have  managed  it  somehow. 
Not  only  this,  the  Earls  of  Haddington  were  first  created  Earls  of  Melrose 
(1619) ;  and  their  Shield,  quarterly,  is  charged,  for  Melrose,  in  2nd  and  3rd  (fesse 
wavy  between)  three  Roses  gu. 

"  Beyond  this  ground  of  certainty,  we  may  indulge  in  a  little  excursus  into 
lingual  affinities  of  wide  range.  The  root  mol  is  clear  enough.  It  is  of  the  same 
stock  as  the  Greek  mala,  Latin  mul{ium),  and  Hebrew  mUa.  But,  Rose?  We 
call  her  Queen  of  Flowers,  and  since  before  the  Persian  poets  made  much  of 
her,  she  was  everywhere  Regina  Florum.  Why  should  not  the  name  mean 
.-.imply  the  Queen,  the  Chief?  Now,  so  few  who  know  Keltic  know  also 
Hebrew,  and  so  few  who  know  Hebrew  know  also  Keltic,  that  few  know  the  sur- 
prising  extent  of  the  affinity  that  exists  —  clear  as  day  —  between  the  Keltic  and 
the  Hebrew  vocabularies.  That  the  word  Rose  may  be  a  case  in  point  is  not 
hazardously  speculative." 


Alfred  to   Cosiir  de  Lion.  71 

Scotch, — that  of  Bishop  Douglas,  —  the  word  'Rois' 
stands  aUke  for  King,  and  Rose. 

Summing  now  the  features  I  have  too  shortly  speci- 
fied in  the  Saxon  character,  —  its  imagination,  its 
docility,  its  love  of  knowledge,  and  its  love  of  beauty, 
you  will  be  prepared  to  accept  my  conclusive  state- 
ment, that  they  gave  rise  to  a  form  of  Christian  faith 
which  appears  to  me,  in  the  present  state  of  my  knowl- 
edge, one  of  the  purest  and  most  intellectual  ever  at- 
tained in  Christendom; — never  yet  understood,  partly 
because  of  the  extreme  rudeness  of  its  expression  in 
the  art  of  manuscripts,  and  partly  because,  on  account 
of  its  very  purity,  it  sought  no  expression  in  architec- 
ture, being  a  religion  of  daily  life,  and  humble  lodging. 
For  these  two  practical  reasons,  first;  —  and  for  this 
more  weighty  third,  that  the  intellectual  character  of  it 
is  at  the  same  time  most  truly,  as  Dean  Stanley  told 
you,  childlike  ;  showing  itself  in  swiftness  of  imagina- 
tive apprehension,  and  in  the  fearlessly  candid  applica- 
tion of  great  principles  to  small  things.  Its  character 
in  this  kind  may  be  instantly  felt  by  any  sympathetic 
and  gentle  person  who  will  read  carefully  the  book  I 
have  already  quoted  to  you,  the  Venerable  Bede's  life 
of  St.  Cuthbert ;  and  the  intensity  and  sincerity  of  it 
in  the  highest  orders  of  the  laity,  by  simply  counting 
the  members  of  Saxon  Royal  families  who  ended  their 
lives  in  monasteries. 

Now,  at  the  very  moment  when  this  faith,  innocence, 


72  The  Pleasures  of  Deed. 

and  ingenuity  were  on  the  point  of  springing  up  into 
their  fruitage,  comes  the  Northern  invasion ;  of  the 
real  character  of  which  you  can  gain  a  far  truer  esti- 
mate by  studying  Alfred's  former  resolute  contest  with 
and  victory  over  the  native  Norman  in  his  paganism, 
than  by  your  utmost  endeavours  to  conceive  the  char- 
acter of  the  afterwards  invading  Norman,  disguised, 
but  not  changed,  by  Christianity.  The  Norman  could 
not,  in  the  nature  of  him,  become  a  Cliristian  at  all ; 
and  he  never  did;  —  he  only  became,  at  his  best,  the 
enemy  of  the  Saracen.  What  he  was,  and  what  alone 
he  was  capable  of  being,  I  will  try  to-day  to  explain. 

And  here  I  must  advise  you  that  in  all  points  of 
history  relating  to  the  period  between  800  and  1200, 
you  will  find  M.  Viollet  le  Due,  incidentally  throughout 
his  'Dictionary  of  Architecture,'  the  best-informed, 
most  intelligent,  and  most  thoughtful  of  guides.  His 
knowledge  of  architecture,  carried  down  into  the  most 
minutely  practical  details,  —  (which  are  often  the  most 
significant),  and  embracing,  over  the  entire  surface  of 
France,  the  buildings  even  of  the  most  secluded  vil- 
lages ;  his  artistic  enthusiasm,  balanced  by  the  acutest 
sagacity,  and  his  patriotism,  by  the  frankest  candour, 
render  his  analysis  of  history  during  that  active  and 
constructive  period  the  most  valuable  known  to  me, 
and  certainly,  in  its  field,  exhaustive.  Of  the  later 
nationality  his  account  is  imperfect,  owing  to  his  pro- 
fessional interest  in  the  mere  science  of  architecture. 


Alfred  to   Cceur  de  Lion.  73 

and  comparative  insensibility  to  the  power  of  sculpture ; 
" — but  of  the  time  with  which  we  are  now  concerned, 
whatever  he  tells  you  must  be  regarded  with  grateful 
attention. 

I  introduce,  therefore,  the  Normans  to  you,  on  their 
first  entering  France,  under  his  descriptive  terms  of 
them.* 

"  As  soon  as  they  were  established  on  the  soil,  these 
barbarians  became  the  most  hardy  and  active  builders. 
Within  the  space  of  a  century  and  a  half,  they  had 
covered  the  country  on  which  they  had  definitely 
landed,  with  religious,  monastic,  and  civil  edifices,  of 
an  extent  and  richness  then  little  common.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  suppose  that  they  had  brought  from  Norway  the 
elements  of  art,t  but  they  were  possessed  by  a  per- 
sisting and  penetrating  spirit ;  their  brutal  force  did 
not  want  for  grandeur.  Conquerors,  they  raised  castles 
to  assure  their  domination  ;  they  soon  recognized  the 
Moral  force  of  the  clergy,  and  endowed  it  richly. 
Eager  always  to  attain  their  end,  when  once  they  saw 
it,  they  never  left  ojie  of  their  enterprises  nnfinished,  and 
in  that  they  differed  completely  from  the  Southern 
inhabitants  of  Gaul.  Tenacious  extremely,  they  were 
perhaps  the  only  ones  among  the  barbarians  estab- 
lished in  France  who  had  ideas  of  order;  the  only  ones 

*  Article  "Architecture,"  vol.  i.,  p.  138. 

t  They  had  brought  some,  of  a  vaiiously  Charybdic,  Serpentine,  and  Diabolic 
character.  -J.  R. 


74  The  Pleasures  of  Deed. 

who  knew  how  to  preserve  their  conquests,  and  com- 
pose a  state.      They  found  the  remains  of  the   Car-^ 
thaginian   arts    on    the   territory   where   they   planted 
themselves,    they   mingled  with    those    their    national 
genius,  positive,  grand,  and  yet  supple." 

Supple,  'Delie,' — capable  of  change  and  play  of  the 
mental  muscle,  in  the  way  that  savages  are  not.  I  do 
not,  myself,  grant  this  suppleness  to  the  Norman,  the 
less  because  another  sentence  of  M.  le  Due's,  occur- 
ring incidentally  in  his  account  of  the  archivolt,  is  of 
extreme  counter-significance,  and  wide  application. 
"The  Norman  arch,"  he  says,  "is  never  derived  from 
traditional  classic  forms,  but  only  from  mathematical 
arrangement  of  line."  Yes  ;  that  is  true  :  the  Norman 
arch  is  never  derived  from  classic  forms.  The  cathe- 
dral,* whose  aisles  you  saw  or  might  have  seen,  yester- 
day, interpenetrated  with  light,  whose  vaults  you  might 
have  heard  prolonging  the  sweet  divisions  of  majestic 
sound,  would  have  been  built  in  that  stately  symme- 
try by  Norman  law,  though  never  an  arch  at  Rome  had 
risen  round  her  field  of  blood, — though  never  her 
Sublician  bridge  had  been  petrified  by  her  Augustan 
pontifices.  But  the  decoration,  though  not  the  struc- 
ture of  those  arches,  they  owed  to  another  race,t 
whose  words  they  stole  without  understanding,  though 
three   centuries    before,    the    Saxon    understood,    and 

*  Of  Oxford,  during  the  afternoon  service. 
t  See  the  concluding  section  of  the  lecture. 


Alfred  to   Cosier  dc  Lion.  75 

used,  to  express  the  most  solemn  majesty  of  his  King- 
hood,  — 

"EGO   EDGAR,   TOTIVS   ALBIONIS"  — 

not  Rex,  that  would  have  meant  the  King  of  Kent  or 
Mercia,  not  of  England,  —  no,  nor  Imperator ;  that 
would  have  meant  only  the  profane  power  of  Rome, 
but  BASILEVS,  meaning  a  King  who  reigned  with 
sacred  authority  given  by  Heaven  and  Christ. 

With  far  meaner  thoughts,  both  of  themselves  and 
their  powers,  the  Normans  set  themselves  to  build 
impregnable  military  walls,  and  sublime  religious  ones, 
m  the  best  possible  practical  ways ;  but  they  no  more 
made  books  of  their  church  fronts  than  of  their  bastion 
flanks  ;  and  cared,  in  the  religion  they  accepted,  nei- 
ther for  its  sentiments  nor  its  promises,  but  only  for 
its  immediate  results  on  national  order. 

As  I  read  them,  they  were  men  wholly  of  this 
world,  bent  on  doing  the  most  in  it,  and  making  the 
best  of  it  that  they  could;  —  men,  to  their  death,  of 
Deed,  never  pausing,  changing,  repenting,  or  anticipat- 
ing, more  than  the  completed  square,  aveu  xpnyov,  of 
their  battle,  their  keep,  and  their  cloister.  Soldiers 
before  and  after  everything,  they  learned  the  lockings 
and  bracings  of  their  stones  primarily  in  defence 
against  the  battering-ram  and  the  projectile,  and  es- 
teemed the  pure  circular  arch  for  its  distributed  and 
equal  strength  more  than  for  its  beauty.     "  I  believe 


76  The  Pleasures  of  Deed. 

again,"  says  M.  le  Due,*  "  that  the  feudal  castle  never 
arrived  at  its  perfectness  till  after  the  Norman  inva- 
sion, and  that  this  race  of  the  North  was  the  first  to 
apply  a  defensive  system  under  unquestionable  laws, 
soon  followed  by  the  nobles  of  the  Continent,  after 
they  had,  at  their  own  expense,  learned  their  supe- 
riority," 

The  next  sentence  is  a  curious  one.  I  pray  your 
attention  to  it.  "The  defensive  system  of  the  Norman 
is  born  of  a  profound  sentiment  of  distrust  and  cunning, 
foreign  to  the  character  of  the  Frank.''  You  will  find  in 
all  my  previous  notices  of  the  French,  continual  insist- 
ance  upon  their  natural  Franchise,  and  also,  if  you  take 
the  least  pains  in  analysis  of  their  literature  down  to 
this  day,  that  the  idea  of  falseness  is  to  them  indeed 
more  hateful  than  to  any  other  European  nation.  To 
take  a  quite  cardinal  instance.  If  you  compare  Lucian's 
and  Shakespeare's  Timon  with  Moliere's  Alceste,  you 
will  find  the  Greek  and  English  misanthropes  dwell 
only  on  men's  ingratitude  to  themselves,  but  Alceste, 
on  their  falsehood  to  each  other. 

Now  hear  M.  le  Due  farther : 

"The  castles  built  between  the  tenth  and  twelfth 
centuries  along  the  Loire,  Gironde,  and  Seine,  that  is 
to  say,  along  the  lines  of  the  Norman  invasions,  and 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  their  possessions,  have  a 
peculiar  and  uniform  character  which  one  finds  neither 

*  Article  "  Chateau,"  vol.  iii.,  p.  65. 


Alfred  to   Coeur  cie  Lion.  77 

in  central  France,  nor  in  Burgundy,  nor  can  there  be 
any  need  for  us  to  throw  light  on  {faife  rcssortu^  the 
superiority  of  the  warrior  spirit  of  the  Normans,  during 
the  later  times  of  the  Carlovingian  epoch,  over  the 
spirit  of  the  chiefs  of  Frank  descent,  established  on 
the  Gallo-Roman  soil."  There's  a  bit  of  honesty  in  a 
Frenchman  for  you  ! 

I  have  just  said  that  they  valued  religion  chiefly  for 
its  influence  of  order  in  the  present  world  :  being  in 
this,  observe,  as  nearly  as  may  be  the  exact  reverse 
of  modern  believers,  or  persons  who  profess  to  be 
such,  —  of  whom  it  may  be  generally  alleged,  too  truly, 
that  they  value  religion  with  respect  to  their  future 
bliss  rather  than  their  present  duty ;  and  are  therefore 
continually  careless  of  its  direct  commands,  with  easy 
excuse  to  themselves  for  disobedience  to  them.  Where- 
as the  Norman,  finding  in  his  own  heart  an  irresistible 
impulse  to  action,  and  perceiving  himself  to  be  set, 
with  entirely  strong  body,  brain,  and  will,  in  the  midst 
of  a  weak  and  dissolute  confusion  of  all  things,  takes 
from  the  Bible  instantly  into  his  conscience  every  exhor- 
tation to  Do  and  to  Govern  ;  and  becomes,  with  all 
his  might  and  understanding,  a  blunt  and  rough  ser- 
vant, knecht,  or  knight  of  God,  liable  to  much  misap- 
prehension, of  course,  as  to  the  services  immediately 
required  of  him,  but  supposing,  since  the  whole  make 
of  him,  outside  and  in,  is  a  soldier's,  that  God  meant 
him  for  a  soldier,  and  that  he  is  to  establish,  by  main 


yS  The  Pleasures  of  Deed. 

force,  the  Christian  faith  and  works  all  over  the  world 
so  far  as  he  comprehends  them ;  not  merely  with  the 
Mahometan  indignation  against  spiritual  error,  but 
with  a  sound  and  honest  soul's  dislike  of  material  error, 
and  resolution  to  extinguish  that,  even  if  perchance 
found  in  the  spiritual  persons  to  whom,  in  their  office, 
he  yet  rendered  total  reverence. 

Which  force  and  faith  in  him  I  may  best  illustrate 
by  merely  putting  together  the  broken  paragraphs  of 
Sismondi's  account  of  the  founding  of  the  Norman 
Kingdom  of  Sicily:  virtually  contemporary  with  the 
conquest  of  England. 

"  The  Normans  surpassed  all  the  races  of  the  west 
in  their  ardour  for  pilgrimages.  They  would  not,  to 
go  into  the  Holy  Land,  submit  to  the  monotony*  of  a 
long  sea  voyage  —  the  rather  that  they  found  not  on 
the  Mediterranean  the  storms  or  dangers  they  had 
rejoiced  to  encounter  on  their  own  sea.  They  trav- 
ersed by  land  the  whole  of  France  and  Italy,  trusting 
to  their  swords  to  procure  the  necessary  subsistence,! 
if  the  charity  of  the  faithful  did  not  enough  provide 
for  it  with  alms.  The  towns  of  Naples,  Amalfi,  Gaeta, 
and  Bari,  held  constant  commerce  with  Syria ;  and  fre- 
quent miracles,  it  was  believed,  illustrated  the  Monte 

*  I  give  Sismondi's  idea  as  it  stands,  but  there  was  no  question  in  the  matter 
of  monotony  or  of  danger.  The  journey  was  made  on  foot  because  it  was  the 
most  laborious  way,  and  the  most  humble. 

t  See  farther  on,  p.  no,  the  analogies  with  English  arrangements  of  the 
same  kind. 


Alfred  to    Cce^tr  de  Lion.  79 

Cassino,  (St.  Benedict  again  !)  on  the  road  of  Naples, 
and  the  Mount  of  Angels  (Garganus)  above  Bari." 
(Ouerccta  Gargani — verily,  laborant ;  noiv,  et  orant.) 
"The  pilgrims  wished  to  visit  during  their  journey  the 
monasteries  built  on  these  two  mountains,  and  there- 
fore nearly  always,  either  going  or  returning  to  the 
Holy  Land,  passed  through  Magna  Gra^cia. 

"  In  one  of  the  earliest  years  of  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury, about  forty  of  these  religious  travellers,  having 
returned  from  the  Holy  Land,  chanced  to  have  met 
together  in  Salerno  at  the  moment  when  a  small  Sar- 
acen fleet  came  to  insult  the  town,  and  demand  of  it 
a  military  contribution.  The  inhabitants  of  South 
Italy,  at  this  time,  abandoned  to  the  delights  of  their 
enchanted  climate,  had  lost  nearly  all  military  courage, 
The  Salernitani  saw  with  astonishment  forty  Norman 
knights,  after  having  demanded  horses  and  arms  from 
the  Prince  of  Salerno,  order  the  gates  of  the  town  to 
be  opened,  charge  the  Saracens  fearlessly,  and  put 
them  to  flight.  The  Salernitani  followed,  however,  the 
example  given  them  by  these  brave  warriors,  and  those 
of  the  Mussulmans  who  escaped  their  swords  were 
forced  to  re-embark  in  all  haste. 

"The  Prince  of  Salerno,  Guaimar  III.,  tried  in  vain 
to  keep  the  warrior-pilgrims  at  his  court :  but  at  his 
solicitation  other  companies  established  themselves  on 
the  rocks  of  Salerno  and  Amalfi,  until,  on  Christmas 
Day,  1 04 1,  (exactly  a  quarter  of  a  century  before  the 


8o  The  Pleasures  of  Deed. 

coronation  here  at  Westminster  of  the  Conqueror,) 
they  gathered  their  scattered  forces  at  Aversa,*  twelve 
groups  of  them  under  twelve  chosen  counts,  and  all 
under  the  Lombard  Ardoin,  as  commander-in-chief." 
Be  so  good  as  to  note  that,  —  a  marvellous  key-note 
of  historical  fact  about  the  unjesting  Lombards,  I 
cannot  find  the  total  Norman  number :  the  chief  con- 
tingent, under  William  of  the  Iron  Arm,  the  son  of 
Tancred  of  Hauteville,  was  only  of  three  hundred 
knights ;  the  Count  of  Aversa's  troop,  of  the  same 
number,  is  named  as  an  important  part  of  the  little 
army  —  admit  it  for  ten  times  Tancred's,  three  thou- 
sand men  in  all.  At  Aversa,  these  three  thousand 
men  form,  coolly  on  Christmas  Day,  1041,  the  design 
of — well,  I  told  you  they  didn't  design  much,  only, 
now  we're  here,  we  may  as  well,  while  we're  about  it, 
—  overthrow  the  Greek  empire  !  That  was  their  little 
game  !  —  a  Christmas  mumming  to  purpose.  The  fol- 
lowing year,  the  whole  of  Apulia  was  divided  among 
them, 

I  will  not  spoil,  by  abstracting,  the  magnificent  fol- 
lowing history  of  Robert  Guiscard,  the  most  wonderful 
soldier  of  that  or  any  other  time  :  I  leave  you  to  finish 
it  for  yourselves,  only  asking  you  to  read  together  with 
it,  the  sketch,  in  Turner's  history  of  the  Anglo-Saxons, 
of  Alfred's  long  previous  war  with  the  Norman  Hast- 
ing ;  pointing  out  to  you  for  foci  of  character  in  each 

*  In  Lombardy,  south  of  Pavia. 


Alfred  to   Coetir  de  Lion.  8i 

contest,  the  culminating  incidents  of  naval  battle.  In 
Guiscard's  struggle  with  the  Greeks,  he  encounters  for 
their  chief  naval  force  the  Venetian  fleet  under  the 
Doge  Domenico  Selvo.  The  Venetians  are  at  this 
moment  undoubted  masters  in  all  naval  warfare ;  the 
Normans  are  worsted  easily  the  first  day,  —  the  second 
day,  fighting  harder,  they  are  defeated  again,  and  so 
disastrously  that  the  Venetian  Doge  takes  no  precau- 
tions against  them  on  the  third  day,  thinking  them 
utterly  disabled.  Guiscard  attacks  him  again  on  the 
third  day,  with  the  mere  wreck  of  his  own  ships,  and 
defeats  the  tired  and  amazed  Italians  finally ! 

The  sea-fight  between  Alfred's  ships  and  those  of 
Hasting,  ought  to  be  still  more  memorable  to  us. 
Alfred,  as  I  noticed  in  last  lecture,  had  built  war  ships 
nearly  twice  as  long  as  the  Normans',  swifter,  and 
steadier  on  the  waves.  Six  Norman  ships  were  rav- 
aging the  Isle  of  Wight ;  Alfred  sent  nine  of  his  own 
to  take  them.  The  King's  fleet  found  the  Northmen's 
embayed,  and  three  of  them  aground.  The  three  others 
engaged  Alfred' s  nine,  twice  their  size  ;  two  of  the  Viking 
ships  were  taken,  but  the  third  escaped,  with  only  five 
men !  A  nation  which  verily  took  its  pleasures  in  its 
Deeds. 

But  before  I  can  illustrate  farther  either  their  deeds 
or  their  religion,  I  must  for  an  instant  meet  the  objec- 
tion which  I  suppose  the  extreme  probity  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  must  feel  acutely  against  these  men,  — 
that  they  all  lived  by  thieving. 


82  The  Pleasures  of  Deed. 

Without  venturing  to  allude  to  the  raison  d'etre  of 
the  present  French  and  English  Stock  Exchanges,  I 
will  merely  ask  any  of  you  here,  whether  of  Saxon  or 
Norman  blood,  to  define  for  himself  what  he  means  by 
the  "possession  of  India."  I  have  no  doubt  that  you 
all  wish  to  keep  India  in  order,  and  in  like  manner  I 
have  assured  you  that  Duke  William  wished  to  keep 
England  in  order.  If  you  will  read  the  lecture  on  the 
life  of  Sir  Herbert  Edwardes,  which  I  hope  to  give  in 
London  after  finishing  this  course,*  you  will  see  how  a 
Christian  British  officer  can,  and  does,  verily,  and  with 
his  whole  heart,  keep  in  order  such  part  of  India  as 
may  be  entrusted  to  him,  and  in  so  doing,  secure  our 
Empire.  But  the  silent  feeling  and  practice  of  the 
nation  about  India  is  based  on  quite  other  motives  than 
Sir  Herbert's.  Every  mutiny,  every  danger,  every  ter- 
ror, and  every  crime,  occurring  under,  or  paralyzing, 
our  Indian  legislation,  arises  directly  out  of  our  na- 
tional desire  to  live  on  the  loot  of  India,  and  the  notion 
always  entertained  by  English  young  gentlemen  and 
ladies  of  good  position,  falling  in  love  with  each  other 
without  immediate  prospect  of  establishment  in  Bel- 
grave  Square,  that  they  can  find  in  India,  instantly  on 
landing,  a  bungalow  ready  furnished  with  the  loveliest 
fans,   china,   and   shawls,  —  ices   and    sherbet  at    com- 

*  This  was  prevented  by  the  necessity  for  the  re-arrangement  of  my  terminal 
Oxford  lectures :  I  am  now  preparing  that  on  Sir  Herbert  for  publication  in  a 
somewhat  expanded  form. 


Alfred  to   Cccur  de  Lion.  83 

mand,  — four-and-twenty  slaves  succeeding  each  other 
hourly  to  swing  the  punkah,  and  a  regiment  with  a 
beautiful  band  to  "keep  order"  outside,  all  round  the 
house. 

Entreating  your  pardon  for  what  may  seem  rude  in 
these  personal  remarks,  I  will  further  entreat  you  to 
read  my  account  of  the  death  of  Coeur  de  Lion  in  the 
third  number  of  '  Fors  Clavigera' — and  also  the  scenes 
in  '  Ivanhoe '  between  Coeur  de  Lion  and  Locksley ; 
and  commending  these  few  passages  to  your  quiet 
consideration,  I  proceed  to  give  you  another  anecdote 
or  two  of  the  Normans  in  Italy,  twelve  years  later  than 
those  given  above,  and,  therefore,  only  thirteen  years 
before  the  battle  of  Hastings. 

Their  division  of  South  Italy  among  them  especially, 
and  their  defeat  of  Venice,  had  alarmed  everybody 
considerably, — especially  the  Pope,  Leo  IX.,  who  did 
not  understand  this  manifestation  of  their  piety.  He 
sent  to  Henry  III.  of  Germany,  to  whom  he  owed  his 
Popedom,  for  some  German  knights,  and  got  five  hun- 
dred spears ;  gathered  out  of  all  Apulia,  Campania,  and 
the  March  of  Ancona,  what  Greek  and  Latin  troops 
were  to  be  had,  to  join  his  own  army  of  the  patrimony 
of  St.  Peter ;  and  the  holy  Pontiff,  with  this  numerous 
army,  but  no  general,  began  the  campaign  by  a  pil- 
grimage with  all  his  troops  to  Monte  Cassino,  in  order 
to  obtain,  if  it  might  be,  St.  Benedict  for  general. 

Against  the  Pope's  collected  masses,  with  St.  Bene- 


84  The  Pleasures  of  Deed. 

diet,  their  contemplative  but  at  first  inactive  general, 
stood  the  little  army  of  Normans,  —  certainly  not  more 
than  the  third  of  their  number  —  but  with  Robert 
Guiscard  for  captain,  and  under  him  his  brother, 
Humphrey  of  Hauteville,  and  Richard  of  Aversa.  Not 
in  fear,  but  in  devotion,  they  prayed  the  Pope  'avec 
instance,'  —  to  say  on  what  conditions  they  could  ap- 
pease his  anger,  and  live  in  peace  under  him.  But 
the  Pope  would  hear  of  nothing  but  their  evacuation 
of  Italy.  Whereupon,  they  had  to  settle  the  question 
in  the  Norman  manner. 

The  two  armies  met  in  front  of  Civitella,  on  Water- 
loo day,  1 8th  June,  thirteen  years,  as  I  said,  before  the 
battle  of  Hastings.  The  German  knights  were  the 
heart  of  the  Pope's  army,  but  they  were  only  five  hun- 
dred ;  the  Normans  surrounded  thcfn  first,  and  slew 
them,  nearly  to  a  man  —  and  then  made  extremely 
short  work  with  the  Italians  and  Greeks.  The  Pope, 
with  the  wreck  of  them,  fled  into  Civitella ;  but  the 
townspeople  dared  not  defend  their  walls,  and  thrust 
the  Pope  himself  out  of  their  gates — to  meet,  alone, 
the  Norman  army. 

He  met  it,  not  alone,  St.  Benedict  being  with  him 
now,  when  he  had  no  longer  the  strength  of  man  to 
trust  in. 

The  Normans,  as  they  approached  him,  threw  them- 
selves on  their  knees,  —  covered  themselves  with  dust, 
and  implored  his  pardon  and  his  blessing. 


Alfred  to   Cceiir  de  Lio?t.  85 

There's  a  bit  of  poetry  —  if  you  like,  —  but  a  piece 
of  steel-clad  fact  also,  compared  to  which  the  battle 
of  Hastings  and  Waterloo  both,  were  mere  boys' 
squabbles. 

You  don't  suppose,  you  British  schoolboys,  that  you 
overthrew  Napoleon — you?  Your  prime  Minister 
folded  up  the  map  of  Europe  at  the  thought  of  him. 
Not  you,  but  the  snows  of  Heaven,  and  the  hand  of 
Him  who  dasheth  in  pieces  with  a  rod  of  iron.  He 
casteth  forth  His  ice  like  morsels, — who  can  stand 
before  His  cold .-' 

But,  so  far  as  you  have  indeed  the  right  to  trust  in 
the  courage  of  your  own  hearts,  remember  also  —  it  is 
not  in  Norman  nor  Saxon,  but  in  Celtic  race  that  your 
real  strength  lies.  The  battles  both  of  Waterloo  and 
Alma  were  won  by  Irish  and  Scots  —  by  the  terrible 
Scots  Greys,  and  by  Sir'  Colin's  Highlanders.  Your 
'thin  red  line,'  was  kept  steady  at  Alma  only  by 
Colonel  Yea's  swearing  at  them. 

But  the  old  Pope,  alone  against  a  Norman  army, 
wanted  nobody  to  swear  at  him.  Steady  enough  he, 
having  somebody  to  bless  him,  instead  of  swear  at  him. 
St.  Benedict,  namely ;  whose  (memory  shall  we  say }) 
helped  him  now  at  his  pinch  in  a  singular  manner,  — 
for  the  Normans,  having  got  the  old  man's  forgiveness, 
vowed  themselves  his  feudal  servants  ;  and  for  seven 
centuries  afterwards  the  whole  kingdom  of  Naples  re- 
mained a  fief  of  St.  Peter,  —  won  for  him  thus  by  a 


86  The  Pleasures  of  Deed. 

single  man,  unarmed,  against  tliree  thousand  Norman 
knights,  captained  by  Robert  Guiscard ! 

A  day  of  deeds,  gentlemen,  to  some  purpose, — that 
1 8th  of  June,  anyhow. 

Here,  in  the  historical  account  of  Norman  character, 
I  must  unwillingly  stop  for  to-day  —  because,  as  you 
choose  to  spend  your  University  money  in  building 
ball-rooms  instead  of  lecture-rooms,  I  dare  not  keep 
you  much  longer  in  this  black  hole,  with  its  nineteenth 
century  ventilation.  I  try  your  patience  —  and  tax 
your  breath  —  only  for  a  few  minutes  more  in  drawing 
the  necessary  corollaries  respecting  Norman  art.* 

How  far  the  existing  British  nation  owes  its  military 
prowess  to  the  blood  of  Normandy  and  Anjou,  I  have 
never  examined  its  genealogy  enough  to  tell  you;  — 
but  this  I  can  tell  you  positively,  that  whatever  consti- 
tutional order  or  personal  valour  the  Normans  enforced 
or  taught  among  the  nations  they  conquered,  they  did 
not  at  first  attempt  with  their  own  hands  to  rival  them 
in  any  of  their  finer  arts,  but  used  both  Greek  and 
Saxon  sculptors,  either  as  slaves,  or  hired  workmen, 
and  more  or  less  therefore  chilled  and  degraded  the 
hearts  of  the  men  thus  set  to  servile,  or  at  best,  hire- 
ling, labour. 

*  Given  at  much  greater  length  in  the  lecture,  with  diagrams  from  Iffley 
and  Poictiers,  without  which  the  text  of  them  would  be  unintelligible.  The 
sum  of  what  I  said  was  a  strong  assertion  of  the  incapacity  of  the  Nor- 
mans for  any  but  the  rudest  and  most  grotesque  sculpture,  —  Poictiers  being,  on 
the  contrary,  examined  and  praised  as  Gallic-French  —  not  Norman. 


Alfred  to   Cceur  de  Lion.  87 

In  1874,  I  went  to  see  Etna,  Scylla,  Charybdis,  and 
the  tombs  of  the  Norman  Kings  at  Palermo ;  surprised, 
as  you  may  imagine,  to  find  that  there  wasn't  a  stroke 
nor  a  notion  of  Norman  work  in  them.  They  arc, 
every  atom,  done  by  Greeks,  and  are  as  pure  Greek  as 
the  temple  of  ^gina ;  but  more  rich  and  refined.  I 
drew  with  accurate  care,  and  with  measured  profile  of 
every  moulding,  the  tomb  built  for  Roger  II.  (after- 
wards Frederick  II.  was  laid  in  its  dark  porphyry). 
And  it  is  a  perfect  type  of  the  Greek-Christian  form 
of  tomb  —  temple  over  sarcophagus,  in  which  the  ped- 
iments rise  gradually,  as  time  goes  on,  into  acute 
angles  —  get  pierced  in  the  gable  with  foils,  and  their 
sculptures  thrown  outside  on  their  flanks,  and  become 
at  last  in  the  fourteenth  century,  the  tombs  of  Verona. 
But  what  is  the  meaning  of  the  Normans  employing 
these  Greek  slaves  for  their  work  in  Sicily  (within 
thirty  miles  of  the  field  of  Himera) }  Well,  the  main 
meaning  is  that  though  the  Normans  could  build,  they 
couldn't  carve,  and  v/ere  wise  enough  not  to  try  to, 
when  they  couldn't,  as  you  do  now  all  over  this  in- 
tensely comic  and  tragic  town  :  but,  here  in  England, 
they  only  employed  the  Saxon  with  a  grudge,  and 
therefore  being  more  and  more  driven  to  use  barren 
mouldings  without  sculpture,  gradually  developed  the 
structural  forms  of  archivolt,  which  breaking  into  the 
lancet,  brighten  and  balance  themselves  into  the  sym- 
metry of  early  English  Gothic. 


88  The  Pleasures  of  Deed, 

But  even  for  the  first  decoration  of  the  archivolt 
itself,  they  were  probably  indebted  to  the  Greeks  in 
a  degree  I  never  apprehended,  until  by  pure  happy 
chance,  a  friend  gave  me  the  clue  to  it  just  as  I  was 
writing  the  last  pages  of  this  lecture. 

In  the  generalization  of  ornament  attempted  in  the 
first  volume  of  the  '  Stones  of  Venice,'  I  supposed  the 
Norman  zigzag  (and  with  some  practical  truth)  to  be 
derived  from  the  angular  notches  with  which  the  blow 
of  an  axe  can  most  easily  decorate,  or  at  least  vary, 
the  solid  edge  of  a  square  fillet.  My  good  friend,  and 
supporter,  and  for  some  time  back  the  single  trustee 
of  St.  George's  Guild,  Mr.  George  Baker,  having  come 
to  Oxford  on  Guild  business,  I  happened  to  show  him 
the  photographs  of  the  front  of  Iflfley  church,  which 
had  been  collected  for  this  lecture ;  and  immediately 
afterwards,  in  taking  him  through  the  schools,  stopped 
to  show  him  the  Athena  of  ^gina  as  one  of  the  most 
important  of  the  Greek  examples  lately  obtained  for  us 
by  Professor  Richmond.  The  statue  is  (rightly)  so 
placed  that  in  looking  up  to  it,  the  plait  of  hair  across 
the  forehead  is  seen  in  a  steeply  curved  arch.  "Why," 
says  Mr.  Baker,  pointing  to  it,  "there's  the  Norman 
arch  of  Iffley."  Sure  enough,  there  it  exactly  was : 
and  a  moment's  reflection  showed  me  how  easily,  and 
with  what  instinctive  fitness,  the  Norman  builders, 
looking  to  the  Greeks  as  their  absolute  masters  in 
sculpture,  and  recognizing  also,  during   the  Crusades, 


Alfred  to   Coeur  de  Lion.  89 

the  hieroglyphic  use  of  the  zigzag,  for  water,  by  the 
Egyptians,  might  have  adopted  this  easily  attained 
decoration  at  once  as  the  sign  of  the  element  over 
which  they  reigned,  and  of  the  power  of  the  Greek 
goddess  who  ruled  both  it  and  them. 

I  do  not  in  the  least  press  your  acceptance  of  such 
a  tradition,  nor  for  the  rest,  do  I  care  myself  whence 
any  method  of  ornament  is  derived,  if  only,  as  a  stran- 
ger, you  bid  it  reverent  welcome.  But  much  proba- 
bility is  added  to  the  conjecture  by  the  indisputable 
transition  of  the  Greek  ^^%  and  arrow  moulding  into 
the  floral  cornices  of  Saxon  and  other  twelfth  century 
cathedrals  in  Central  France.  These  and  other  such 
transitions  and  exaltations  I  will  give  you  the  materials 
to  study  at  your  leisure,  after  illustrating  in  my  next 
lecture  the  forces  of  religious  imagination  by  which  all 
that  was  most  beautiful  in  them  was  inspired. 


I 


LECTURE   IV. 

{Nov.  8,  1884.) 


THE   PLEASURES  OF   FANCY. 

Coetir  de  Lion  to  Eli{abetb 
(1189  to  1558). 


LECTURE    IV. 
THE   PLEASURES   OF   FANCY. 


CCEUR   DE   LIOxN   TO   ELIZABETH. 

IN  using  the  word  "  Fancy,"  for  the  mental  faculties 
of  which  I  am  to  speak  to-day,  I  trust  you,  at  your 
leisure,  to  read  the  Introductory  Note  to  the  second 
volume  of  '  Modern  Painters '  in  the  small  new  edition, 
which  gives  sufficient  reason  for  practically  including 
under  the  single  term  Fancy,  or  Fantasy,  all  the  ener- 
gies of  the  Imagination, — in  the  terms  of  the  last  sen- 
tence of  that  preface, — "  the  healthy,  voluntary,  and 
necessary,*  action  of  the  highest  powers  of  the  human 
mind,  on  subjects  properly  demanding  and  justifying 
their  exertion." 

I  must  farther  ask  you  to  read,  in  the  same  volume, 
the  close  of  the  chapter  '  Of  Imagination  Penetrative,' 
pp.  120  to  130,  of  which  the  gist,  which  I  must  give  as 
the  first  principle  from  which  we  start  in  our  to-day's 
inquiry,  is  that  "  Imagination,  rightly  so  called,  has  no 

*  Meaning  that  all  healthy  minds  possess  imagination,  and  use  it  at  will,  under 
fixed  laws  of  truthful  perception  and  memory. 


94  The  Pleasures  of  Fancy. 

food,  no  delight,  no  care,  no  perception,  except  of 
truth ;  it  is  for  ever  looking  under  masks,  and  burning 
up  mists ;  no  fairness  of  form,  no  majesty  of  seeming, 
will  satisfy  it ;  the  first  condition  of  its  existence  is 
incapability  of  being  deceived."*  In  that  sentence, 
which  is  a  part,  and  a  very  valuable  part,  of  the  origi- 
nal book,  I  still  adopted  and  used  unnecessarily  the 
ordinary  distinction  between  Fancy  and  Imagination — 
Fancy  concerned  with  lighter  things,  creating  fairies  or 
centaurs,  and  Imagination  creating  men ;  and  I  was  in 
the  habit  always  of  implying  by  the  meaner  word 
Fancy,  a  voluntary  Fallacy,  as  Wordsworth  does  in 
those  lines  to  his  wife,  making  of  her  a  mere  lay  figure 
for  the  drapery  of  his  fancy — 

Such  if  thou  wert,  in  all  men's  view 

An  universal  show, 
What  would  my  Fancy  have  to  do, 

My  feelings  to  bestow. 

But  you  will  at  once  understand  the  higher  and  more 
universal  power  which  I  now  wish  you  to  understand 
by  the  Fancy,  including  all  imaginative  energy,  correct- 
ing these  lines  of  Wordsworth's  to  a  more  worthy 
description  of  a  true  lover's  happiness.  When  a  boy 
falls  in  love  with  a  girl,  you  say  he  has  taken  a  fancy 
for  her;  but  if  he  love  her  rightly,  that  is  to  say  for 
her  noble  qualities,  you  ought  to  say  he  has  taken  an 
imagination  for  her ;    for   then  he  is  endued  with  the 

*  Vide  pp.  124-5. 


Coetir  de  Lion  to  Elizabeth.  95 

new  light  of  love  which  sees  and  tells  of  the  mind  in 
her,— and  this  neither  falsely  nor  vainly.  His  love 
does  not  bestow,  it  discovers,  what  is  indeed  most 
precious  in  his  mistress,  and  most  needful  for  his  own 
life  and  happiness.  Day  by  day,  as  he  loves  her  bet- 
ter, he  discerns  her  more  truly ;  and  it  is  only  the  truth 
of  his  love  that  does  so.  Falsehood  to  her,  would  at 
once  disenchant  and  blind  him. 

In  my  first  lecture  of  this  year,  I  pointed  out  to  you 
with  what  extreme  simplicity  and  reality  the  Chris- 
tian faith  must  have  presented  itself  to  the  Northern 
Pagan's  mind,  in  its  distinction  from  his  former  con- 
fused and  monstrous  mythology.  It  was  also  in  that 
simplicity  and  tangible  reality  of  conception,  that  this 
Faith  became  to  them,  and  to  the  other  savage  nations 
of  Europe,  Tutress  of  the  real  power  of  their  imagina- 
tion ;  and  it  became  so,  only  in  so  far  as  it  indeed  con- 
veyed to  them  statements  which,  however  in  some  re- 
spects mysterious,  were  yet  most  literally  and  brightly 
true,  as  compared  with  their  former  conceptions.  So 
that  while  the  blind  cunning  of  the  savage  had  pro- 
duced only  misshapen  logs  or  scrawls  ;  the  seeijig  imagi- 
nation of  the  Christian  painters  created,  for  them  and 
for  all  the  world,  the  perfect  types  of  the  Virgin  and 
of  her  Son ;  which  became,  indeed.  Divine,  by  being, 
with  the  most  affectionate  truth,  human. 

And  the  association  of  this  truth  in  loving  concep- 
tion, with  the  general  honesty  and  truth  of  the  charac- 


gS  The  Pleasures  of  Fancy. 

ter,  is  again  conclusively  shown  in  the  feelings  of  the 
lover  to  his  mistress ;  which  we  recognize  as  first  reach- 
ing their  height  in  the  days  of  chivalry.  The  truth 
and  faith  of  the  lover,  and  his  piety  to  Heaven,  are 
the  foundation,  in  his  character,  of  all  the  joy  in  imagi- 
nation which  he  can  receive  from  the  conception  of 
his  lady's — now  no  more  mortal— beauty.  She  is  in- 
deed transfigured  before  him;  but  the  truth  of  the 
transfiguration  is  greater  than  that  of  the  lightless 
aspect  she  bears  to  others.  When  therefore,  in  my 
next  lecture,  I  speak  of  the  Pleasures  of  Truth,  as 
distinct  from  those  of  the  Imagination, — if  either  the 
limits  or  clearness  of  brief  title  had  permitted  me,  I 
should  have  said,  untrans figured  truth  ; — meaning  on 
the  one  side,  truth  which  we  have  not  heart  enough  to 
transfigure,  and  on  the  other,  truth  of  the  lower  kind 
which  is  incapable  of  transfiguration.  One  may  look 
at  a  girl  till  one  believes  she  is  an  angel ;  because,  in 
the  best  of  her,  she  is  one ;  but  one  can't  look  at  a 
cockchafer  till  one  believes  it  is  a  girl. 

With  this  warning  of  the  connection  which  exists 
between  the  honest  intellect  and  the  healthy  imagi- 
nation ;  and  using  henceforward  the  shorter  word 
'Fancy'  for  all  inventive  vision,  I  proceed  to  consider 
with  you  the  meaning  and  consequences  of  the  frank 
and  eager  exertion  of  the  fancy  on  Religious  subjects, 
between  the  twelfth  and  sixteenth  centuries. 

Its  first,  and  admittedly  most   questionable  action, 


Ccetir  de  Lion  to  Elizabeth.  97 

the  promotion  of  the  group  of  martyr  saints  of  the 
third  century  to  thrones  of  uncontested  dominion  in 
heaven,  had  better  be  distinctly  understood,  before  we 
debate  of  it,  either  with  the  Iconoclast  or  the  Ration- 
alist. This  apotheosis  by  the  Imagination  is  the  sub- 
ject of  my  present  lecture.  To-day  I  only  describe  it, 
— in  my  next  lecture  I  will  discuss  it. 

Observe,  however,  that  in  giving  such  a  history  of 
the  mental  constitution  of  nascent  Christianity,  we 
have  to  deal  with,  and  carefully  to  distinguish,  two 
entirely  different  orders  in  its  accepted  hierarchy : — 
one,  scarcely  founded  at  all  on  personal  characters  or 
acts,  but  mythic  or  symbolic  ;  often  merely  the  revi- 
val, the  baptized  resuscitation  of  a  Pagan  deity,  or  the 
personified  omnipresence  of  a  Christian  virtue ; — the 
other,  a  senate  of  Patres  Conscripti  of  real  persons, 
great  in  genius,  and  perfect,  humanly  speaking,  in  holi- 
ness; who  by  their  personal  force  and  inspired  wis- 
dom, wrought  the  plastic  body  of  the  Church  into  such 
noble  form  as  in  each  of  their  epochs  it  was  able  to 
receive ;  and  on  the  right  understanding  of  whose 
lives,  nor  less  of  the  affectionate  traditions  which  mag- 
nified and  illumined  their  memories,  must  absolutely 
depend  the  value  of  every  estimate  we  form,  whether 
of  the  nature  of  the  Christian  Church  herself,  or  of  the 
directness  of  spiritual  agency  by  which  she  was  guided.* 

*  If  the  reader  believes  in  no  spiritual  agency,  still  his  understanding  of  the 
first  letters  in  the  Alphabet  of  History  depends  on  his  comprehending  rightly 
the  tempers  of  the  people  who  did- 


98  The  Pleasures  of  Fancy. 

An  important  distinction,  therefore,  is  to  be  noted 
at  the  outset,  in  the  objects  of  this  Apotheosis,  accord- 
ing as  they  are,  or  are  not,  real  persons.  . 

Of  these  two  great  orders  of  Saints,  the  first,  or 
mythic,  belongs — speaking  broadly — to  the  southern  or 
Greek  Church  alone. 

The  Gothic  Christians,  once  detached  from  the  wor- 
ship of  Odin  and  Thor,  abjure  from  their  hearts  all 
trust  in  the  elements,  and  all  worship  of  ideas.  They 
will  have  their  Saints  in  flesh  and  blood,  their  Angels 
in  plume  and  armour ;  and  nothing  incorporeal  or 
invisible.  In  all  the  Religious  sculpture  beside  Loire 
and  Seine,  you  will  not  find  either  of  the  great  rivers 
personified  ;  the  dress  of  the  highest  seraph  is  of  true 
steel  or  sound  broadcloth,  neither  flecked  by  hail,  nor 
fringed  by  thunder ;  and  while  the  ideal  Charity  of 
Giotto  at  Padua  presents  her  heart  in  her  hand  to  God, 
and  tramples  at  the  same  instant  on  bags  of  gold,  the 
treasures  of  the  world,  and  gives  only  corn  and  flow- 
ers ;  that  on  the  west  porch  of  Amiens  is  content  to 
clothe  a  beggar  with  a  piece  of  the  staple  manufacture 
of  the  town. 

On  the  contrary,  it  is  nearly  impossible  to  find  in  the 
imagery  of  the  Greek  Church,  under  the  former  exer- 
cise of  the  Imagination,  a  representation  either  of  man 
or  beast  which  purports  to  represent  only  the  person, 
or  the  brute.  Every  mortal  creature  stands  for  an  Im- 
mortal Intelligence  or  Influence :    a  Lamb  means   an 


Cceur  de  Lion  to  Elizabeth.  99 

Apostle,  a  Lion  an  Evangelist,  an  Angel  the  Eternal 
justice  or  benevolence ;  and  the  most  historical  and 
indubitable  of  Saints  are  compelled  to  set  forth,  in 
their  vulgarly  apparent  persons,  a  Platonic  myth  or  an 
Athanasian  article. 

I  therefore  take  note  first  of  the  mythic  saints  in 
succession,  whom  this  treatment  of  them  by  the 
Byzantine  Church  made  afterwards  the  favourite  idols 
of  all  Christendom. 

I.  The  most  mythic  is  of  course  St.  Sophia  ;  the 
shade  of  the  Greek  Athena,  passing  into  the  *  Wisdom ' 
of  the  Jewish  Proverbs  and  Psalms,  and  the  Apocry- 
phal '  Wisdom  of  Solomon.'  She  always  remains 
understood  as  a  personification  only ;  and  has  no  direct 
influence  on  the  mind  of  the  unlearned  multitude  of 
Western  Christendom,  except  as  a  godmother, — in 
which  kindly  function  she  is  more  and  more  accepted 
as  times  go  on  ;  her  healthy  influence  being  perhaps 
greater  over  sweet  vicars*  daughters  in  Wakefield — 
when  Wakefield  was, — than  over  the  prudentest  of  the 
rarely  prudent  Empresses  of  Byzantium. 

II.  Of  St.  Catharine  of  Egypt  there  are  vestiges  of 
personal  tradition  which  may  perhaps  permit  the  sup- 
position of  her  having  really  once  existed,  as  a  very 
lovely,  witty,  proud,  and  '  fanciful '  girl.  She  after- 
wards becomes  the  Christian  type  of  the  Bride,  in  the 
*  Song  of  Solomon,'  involved  with  an  ideal  of  all  that  is 


lOo  The  Pleasures  of  Fancy. 

purest  in  the  life  of  a  nun,  and  brightest  in  the  death 
of  a  martyr.  It  is  scarcely  possible  to  overrate  the  in- 
fluence of  the  conceptions  formed  of  her,  in  ennobling 
the  sentiments  of  Christian  women  of  the  higher 
orders ; to  their  practical  common  sense,  as  the  mis- 
tresses of  a  household  or  a  nation,  her  example  may 
have  been  less  conducive. 

III.  St.  Barbara,  also  an  Egyptian,  and  St.  Catha- 
rine's contemporary,  though  the  most  practical  of  the 
mythic  saints,  is  also,  after  St.  Sophia,  the  least  cor- 
poreal :  she  vanishes  far  away  into  the  '  Inclusa  Danae,' 
and  her"Turris  aenea"  becomes  a  myth  of  Christian 
safety,  of  which  the  Scriptural  significance  may  be 
enough  felt  by  merely  looking  out  the  texts  under  the 
word  "Tower,"  in  your  concordance;  and  whose  effect- 
ual power,  in  the  fortitudes  alike  of  matter  and  spirit, 
was  in  all  probability  made  impressive  enough  to  all 
Christendom,  both  by  the  fortifications  and  persecu- 
tions of  Diocletian.  I  have  endeavoured  to  mark  her 
general  relations  to  St.  Sophia  in  the  little  imaginary 
dialogue  between  them,  given  in  the  eighth  lecture  of 
the  '  Ethics  of  the  Dust.' 

Afterwards,  as  Gothic  architecture  becomes  dom- 
inant, and  at  last  beyond  question  the  most  wonder- 
ful of  all  temple-building,  St.  Barbara's  Tower  is,  of 
course,  its  perfected  symbol  and  utmost  achievement ; 
and  whether  in  the  coronets  of  countless  battlements 
worn  on  the  brows  of  the  noblest  cities,  or  in  the  Lorn- 


Cceur  de  Lion  to  Elizabeth.  loi 

bard  bell-tower  on  the  mountains,  and  the  English 
spire  on  Sarum  plain,  the  geometric  majesty  of  the 
Egyptian  maid  became  glorious  in  harmony  of 
defence,  and  sacred  with  precision  of  symbol. 

As  the  buildings  which  showed  her  utmost  skill  were 
chiefly  exposed  to  lightning,  she  is  invoked  in  defence 
from  it ;  and  our  petition  in  the  Litany,  against  sudden 
death,  was  written  originally  to  her.  The  blasphemous 
corruptions  of  her  into  a  patroness  of  cannon  and  gun- 
powder, are  among  the  most  ludicrous,  (because  precisely 
contrary  to  the  original  tradition,)  as  well  as  the  most 
deadly,  insolences  and  stupidities  of  Renaissance  Art. 

IV.  St.  Margaret  of  Antioch  was  a  shepherdess ; 
the  St.  Genevieve  of  the  East ;  the  type  of  feminine 
gentleness  and  simplicity.  Traditions  of  the  resur- 
rection of  Alcestis  perhaps  mingle  in  those  of  her 
contest  with  the  dragon  ;  but  at  all  events,  she  differs 
from  the  other  three  great  mythic  saints,  in  express- 
ing the  soul's  victory  over  temptation  or  affliction, 
by  Christ's  miraculous  help,  and  without  any  special 
power  of  its  own.  She  is  the  saint  of  the  meek  and 
of  the  poor ;  her  virtue  and  her  victory  are  those  of 
all  gracious  and  lowly  womanhood  ;  and  her  memory 
is  consecrated  among  the  gentle  households  of  Europe; 
no  other  name,  except  those  of  Jeanne  and  Jeanie, 
seems  so  gifted  with  a  baptismal  fairy  power  of  giving 
grace  and  peace. 

I  must  be  forgiven  for  thinking,  even  on  this  canon- 


I02  The  Pleasures  of  Fancy, 

ical  ground,  not  only  of  Jeanie  Deans,  and  Margaret 
of  Branksome;  but  of  Meg — Merrilies.  My  readers 
will,  I  fear,  choose  rather  to  think  of  the  more  doubt- 
ful victory  over  the  Dragon,  won  by  the  great  Marga- 
ret of  German  literature. 

V.  With  much  more  clearness  and  historic  comfort 
we  may  approach  the  shrine  of  St.  Cecilia  ;  and  even 
on  the  most  prosaic  and  realistic  minds — such  as  my 
own — a  visit  to  her  house  in  Rome  has  a  comforting 
and  establishing  effect,  which  reminds  one  of  the 
carter  in  '  Harry  and  Lucy,'  who  is  convinced  of  the 
truth  of  a  plaustral  catastrophe  at  first  incredible  to 
him,  as  soon  as  he  hears  the  name  of  the  hill  on  which 
it  happened.  The  ruling  conception  of  her  is  deep- 
ened gradually  by  the  enlarged  study  of  Religious 
music ;  and  is  at  its  best  and  highest  in  the  thir- 
teenth century,  when  she  rather  resists  than  complies 
with  the  already  tempting  and  distracting  powers  of 
sound ;  and  we  are  told  that  "  cantantibus  organis, 
Cecilia  virgo  in  corde  suo  soli  Domino  decantabat, 
dicens,  '  Fiat,  Domine,  cor  meum  et  corpus  meum 
immaculatum,  ut  non  confundar.'  " 

("While  the  instruments  played,  Cecilia  the  virgin 
sang  in  her  heart  only  to  the  Lord,  saying,  Oh  Lord, 
be  my  heart  and  body  made  stainless,  that  I  be  not 
confounded.") 

This  sentence  occurs  in  my  great  Service-book  of 
the   convent   of   Beau-pr^,    written   in    1290,  and  it  is 


Ccettr  dc  Lion  to  Elizabeth.  103 

illustrated  with  a  miniature  of  Cecilia  sitting  silent  at 
a  banquet,  where  all  manner  of  musicians  are  playing. 
I  need  not  point  out  to  you  how  the  law,  not  of 
sacred  music  only,  so  called,  but  of  all  music,  is  deter- 
mined by  this  sentence ;  which  means  in  efTect  that 
unless  music  exalt  and  purify,  it  is  not  under  St.  Ce- 
cilia's ordinance,  and  it  is  not,  virtually,  music  at  all. 
Her  confessed  power  at  last  expires  amidst  a  hub- 
bub of  odes  and  sonatas;  and  I  suppose  her  presence 
at  a  Morning  Popular  is  as  little  anticipated  as  desired. 
Unconfessed,  she  is  of  all  the  mythic  saints  for  ever 
the  greatest;  and  the  child  in  its  nurse's  arms,  and 
every  tender  and  gentle  spirit  which  resolves  to  purify 
in  itself, — as  the  eye  for  seeing,  so  the  ear  for  hearing, 
— may  still,  whether  behind  the  Temple  veil,*  or  at 
the  fireside,  and  by  the  wayside,  hear  Cecilia  sing. 

*  "  But,  standing  in  the  lowest  place, 

And  mingled  with  the  work-day  crowd, 
A  poor  man  looks,  with  lifted  face, 
And  hears  the  Angels  crj-  aloud. 

"  He  seeks  not  how  each  instant  flies, 
One  moment  is  Eternity  ; 
His  spirit  v/ith  the  Angels  cries 
To  Thee,  to  Thee,  continually. 

"  What  if,  Isaiah-like,  he  know 
His  heart  be  weak,  his  lips  unclean, 
His  nature  vile,  his  office  low. 
His  dwelling  £ind  his  people  mean  ? 

"  To  such  the  Angels  spake  of  old —  * 

To  such  of  yore,  the  glory  came  ; 
These  altar  fires  can  ne'er  grow  cold  : 
Then  be  it  his,  that  cleansing  flame." 

These  verses,  part  of  a  very  lovely  poem,  "  To  Thee  all  Angels  crv  a\ou(l.'' 


104  ^-^^  Pleasures  of  Fancy. 

It  would  delay  me  too  long  just  now  to  trace  in 
specialty  farther  the  functions  of  the  mythic,  or,  as  in 
another  sense  they  may  be  truly  called,  the  universal, 
Saints:  the  next  greatest  of  them,  St.  Ursula,  is  essen- 
tially British, — and  you  will  find  enough  about  her  in 
*  Fors  Clavigera ' ;  the  others,  I  will  simply  give  you  in 
entirely  authoritative  order  from  the  St.  Louis'  Psalter, 
as  he  read  and  thought  of  them. 

The  proper  Service-book  of  the  thirteenth  century 
consists  first  of  the  pure  Psalter  ;  then  of  certain  essen- 
tial passages  of  the  Old  Testament — invariably  the 
Song  of  Miriam  at  the  Red  Sea  and  the  last  song  of 
Moses ;— ordinarily  also  the  I2th  of  Isaiah  and  the 
prayer  of  Habakkuk ;  while  St.  Louis'  Psalter  has  also 
the  prayer  of  Hannah,  and  that  of  Hezekiah  (Isaiah 
xxxviii.  10 — 20) ;  the  Song  of  the  Three  Children  ;  the 
the  Benedictus,  the  Magnificat,  and  the  Nunc  Dimittis. 
Then  follows  the  Athanasian  Creed  ;  and  then,  as  in 
all  Psalters  after  their  chosen  Scripture  passages,  the 
collects  to  the  Virgin,  the  Te  Deum,  and  Service  to 
Christ,  beginning  with  the  Psalm  '  The  Lord  reigneth  ' ; 
and  then  the  collects  to  the  greater  individual  saints, 
closing  with  the  Litany,  or  constant  prayer  for  mercy 
to  Christ,  and  all  saints ;  of  whom  the  order  is, — Arch- 
angels, Patriarchs,  Apostles,  Disciples,  Innocents,  Mar- 
in the  'Monthly  Packet'  for  September  1873,  are  only  signed  'Veritas.'  The 
volume  for  that  year  (the  i6th)  is  well  worth  getting,  for  the  sake  of  the  admira- 
ble papers  in  it  by  Miss  Sewell,  on  questions  of  the  day ;  by  Miss  A.  C.  Owen, 
on  Christian  Art;  and  the  unsigned  Cameos  from  English  History. 


Cosur  dc  Lio7i  to  Elizabeth.  105 

tyrs,  Confessors,  Monks,  and  Virgins.  Of  women  the 
Magdalen  always  leads ;  St.  Mary  of  Egypt  usually 
follows,  but  may  be  the  last.  Then  the  order  varies  in 
every  place,  and  prayer-book,  no  recognizable  suprem- 
acy being  traceable  ;  except  in  relation  to  the  place, 
or  person,  for  whom  the  book  was  written.  In  St. 
Louis',  St.  Genevieve  (the  last  saint  to  whom  he 
prayed  on  his  death-bed)  follows  the  two  Maries ;  then 
come — memorable  for  you  best,  as  easiest,  in  this  six- 
foil group, — Saints  Catharine,  Margaret,  and  Scolas- 
tica,  Agatha,  Cecilia,  and  Agnes  ;  and  then  ten  more, 
whom  you  may  learn  or  not  as  you  like  :  I  note  them 
now  only  for  future  reference, — more  lively  and  easy 
for  your  learning, — by  their  French  names, 

Felicity, 

Colombe, 

Christine, 


Aur6e,  Honorine, 


Radegonde, 

Prax^de, 

Euph^mie, 


Bathilde,  Eugenie. 

Such  was   the   system  of  Theology  into  which  the 
Imaginative  Religion  of  Europe   was  crystallized,  by 


io6  The  Pleasures  of  Fancy. 

the  growth  of  its  own  best  faculties,  and  the  influence 
of  all  accessible  and  credible  authorities,  during  the 
period  between  the  eleventh  and  fifteenth  centuries 
inclusive.  Its  spiritual  power  is  completely  repre- 
sented by  the  angelic  and  apostolic  dynasties,  and  the 
women-saints  in  Paradise  ;  for  of  the  men-saints,  be- 
neath the  apostles  and  prophets,  none  but  St.  Christo- 
pher, St.  Nicholas,  St.  Anthony,  St.  James,  and  St. 
George,  attained  anything  like  the  influence  of  Catha^ 
rine  or  Cecilia  ;  for  the  verj'  curious  reason,  that  the 
men-saints  were  much  more  true,  real,  and  numerous-. 
St.  Martin  was  reverenced  all  over  Europe,  but  defi^ 
nitely,  as  a  man,  and  the  Bishop  of  Tours.  So  Sti 
Ambrose  at  Milan,  and  St.  Gregory  at  Rome,  and  hun- 
dreds of  good  men  more,  all  over  the  world ;  while  the 
really  good  women  remained,  though  not  rare,  incon- 
spicuous. The  virtues  of  French  Clotilde,  and  Swiss 
Berthe,  were  painfully  borne  down  in  the  balance  of 
visible  judgment,  by  the  guilt  of  the  Gonerils,  Regans, 
and  Lady  Macbeths,  whose  spectral  procession  closes 
only  with  the  figure  of  Eleanor  in  Woodstock  maze  ; 
and  in  dearth  of  nearer  objects,  the  daily  brighter 
powers  of  fancy  dwelt  with  more  concentrated  devo- 
tion on  the  stainless  ideals  of  the  earlier  maid-martyrs. 
And  observe,  even  the  loftier  fame  of  the  men-saints 
above  named,  as  compared  with  the  rest,  depends  on 
precisely  the  same  character  of  indefinite  personality  ; 
and  on  the  representation,  by  each  of  them,  of  a  moral 


Cceur  de  Lion  to  Elizabeth.  107 

idea  which  may  be  embodied  and  painted  in  a  miracu- 
lous legend  ;  credible,  as  history,  even  then,  only  to  the 
vulgar ;  but  powerful  over  them,  nevertheless,  exactly 
in  proportion  to  the  degree  in  which  it  can  be  pic- 
tured and  fancied  as  a  living  creature.  Consider  even 
yet  in  these  days  of  mechanism,  how  the  dullest  John 
Bull  cannot  with  perfect  complacency  adore  Jiimsclf, 
except  under  the  figure  of  Britannia  or  the  British 
Lion ;  and  how  the  existence  of  the  popular  jest-book, 
which  might  have  seemed  secure  in  its  necessity  to 
our  weekly  recreation,  is  yet  virtually  centred  on  the 
imaginary  animation  of  a  puppet,  and  the  imaginary 
elevation  to  reason  of  a  dog.  But  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
this  action  of  the  Fancy,  now  distorted  and  despised, 
was  the  happy  and  sacred  tutress  of  every  faculty  of 
the  body  and  soul  ;  and  the  works  and  thoughts 
of  art,  the  joys  and  toils  of  men,  rose  and  flowed  on 
in  the  bright  air  of  it,  with  the  aspiration  of  a  flame, 
and  the  beneficence  of  a  fountain. 

And  now,  in  the  rest  of  my  lecture,  I  had  intended 
to  give  you  a  broad  summary  of  the  rise  and  fall  of 
English  art,  born  under  this  code  of  theology,  and  this 
enthusiasm  of  duty; — of  its  rise,  from  the  rude  vaults 
of  Westminster,  to  the  finished  majesty  of  Wells  ; — 
and  of  its  fall,  from  that  brief  hour  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  through  the  wars  of  the  Bolingbroke,  and  the 
pride  of  the  Tudor,  and  the  lust  of  the  Stewart,  to 
expire  under  the  mocking  snarl  and  ruthless  blow  of 


io8  The  Pleasures  of  Fancy, 

the  Puritan.  But  you  know  that  I  have  always,  in 
my  most  serious  work,  allowed  myself  to  be  influenced 
by  those  Chances,  as  they  are  now  called, — but  to  my 
own  feeling  and  belief,  guidances,  and  even,  if  rightly 
understood,  commands, — which,  as  far  as  I  have  read 
history,  the  best  and  sincerest  men  think  providen- 
tial. Had  this  lecture  been  on  common  principles  of 
art,  I  should  have  finished  it  as  I  intended,  without 
fear  of  its  being  the  worse  for  my  consistency.  But  it 
deals,  on  the  contrary,  with  a  subject,  respecting 
which  every  sentence  I  write,  or  speak,  is  of  impor- 
tance in  its  issue  ;  and  I  allowed,  as  you  heard,  the 
momentary  observation  of  a  friend,  to  give  an 
entirely  new  cast  to  the  close  of  my  last  lecture. 
Much  more,  I  feel  it  incumbent  upon  me  in  this 
one,  to  take  advantage  of  the  most  opportune  help, 
though  in  an  unexpected  direction,  given  me  by  my 
constant  tutor,  Professor  Westwood.  I  went  to  dine 
with  him,  a  day  or  two  ago,  mainly — being  neither  of 
us,  I  am  thankful  to  say,  blue-ribanded — to  drink  his 
health  on  his  recovery  from  his  recent  accident. 
Whereupon  he  gave  me  a  feast  of  good  talk,  old 
wine,  and  purple  manuscripts.  And  having  had  as 
much  of  all  as  I  could  well  carry,  just  as  it  came 
to  the  good-night,  out  he  brings,  for  a  finish,  this 
leaf  of  manuscript  in  my  hand,  which  he  has  lent 
me  to  show  you, — a  leaf  of  the  Bible  of  Charles  the 
Bald! 


Cceur  de  Lion  to  Elizabeth.  109 

A  leaf  of  it,  at  least,  as  far  as  you  or  I  could  tell, 
for  Professor  Westwood's  copy  is  just  as  good,  in  all 
the  parts  finished,  as  the  original :  and,  for  all  prac- 
tical purpose,  I  show  you  here  in  my  hand  a  leaf  of 
the  Bible  which  your  own  King  Alfred  saw  with  his 
own  bright  eyes,  and  from  which  he  learned  his  child- 
faith  in  the  days  of  dawning  thought ! 

There  are  few  English  children  who  do  not  know 
the  story  of  Alfred,  the  king,  letting  the  cakes  burn, 
and  being  chidden  by  his  peasant  hostess.  How  few 
English  children — nay,  how  few  perhaps  of  their 
educated,  not  to  say  learned,  elders — reflect  upon,  if 
even  they  know,  the  far  different  scenes  through  which 
he  had  passed  when  a  child  ! 

Concerning  his  father,  his  mother,  and  his  own 
childhood,  suppose  you  were  to  teach  your  children 
first  these  following  main  facts,  before  you  come  to 
the  toasting  of  the  muffin? 

His  father,  educated  by  Helmstan,  Bishop  of  Win- 
chester, had  been  offered  the  throne  of  the  great 
Saxon  kingdom  of  Mercia  in  his  early  youth;  had 
refused  it,  and  entered,  as  a  novice  under  St.  Swithin 
the  monastery  at  Winchester.  From  St.  Swithin,  he 
received  the  monastic  habit,  and  was  appointed  by 
Bishop  Helmstan  one  of  his  sub-deacons  ! 

"The    quiet    seclusion    which     Ethelwulph's   slow* 

*  Turner,  quoting  William  of  Malmesbur>',  "  Crassioris  et  hebetis  ingenii,"— 
mejining  that  he  had  neither  ardour  for  war,  nor  ambition  for  kinghood. 


no  The  Pleasures  of  Fancy. 

capacity  and  meek  temper  coveted  "  was  not  permitted 
to  him  by  fate.  The  death  of  his  elder  brother  left 
him  the  only  living  representative  of  the  line  of  the 
West  Saxon  princes.  His  accession  to  the  throne 
became  the  desire  of  the  people.  He  obtained  a  dis- 
pensation from  the  Pope  to  leave  the  cloister ; 
assumed  the  crown  of  Egbert  ;  and  retained  Egbert's 
prime  minister,  Alstan,  Bishop  of  Sherborne,  who  was 
the  Minister  in  peace  and  war,  the  Treasurer,  and  the 
Counsellor,  of  the  kings  of  England,  over  a  space,  from 
first  to  last,  of  fifty  years. 

Alfred's  mother,  Osburga,  must  have  been  married 
for  love.  She  was  the  daughter  of  Oslac,  the  king's 
cup-bearer.  Extolled  for  her  piety  and  understand- 
ing, she  bore  the  king  four  sons  ;  dying  before  the 
last,  Alfred,  was  five  years  old,  but  leaving  him  St. 
Swithin  for  his  tutor.  How  little  do  any  of  us  think, 
in  idle  talk  of  rain  or  no  rain  on  St.  Swithin's  day,  that 
we  speak  of  the  man  whom  Alfred's  father  obeyed 
as  a  monk,  and  whom  his  mother  chose  for  his 
guardian  ! 

Alfred,  both  to  father  and  mother,  was  the  best 
beloved  of  their  children.  On  his  mother's  death,  his 
father  sent  him,  being  then  five  years  old,  with  a  great 
retinue  through  France  and  across  the  Alps  to  Rome; 
and  there  the  Pope  anointed  him  King,  (heir-appar- 
ent to  the  English  throne),  at  the  request  of  his 
father. 


Coeur  de  Lio7i  to  Elizabeth.  1 1 1 

Think  of  it,  you  travellers  through  the  Alps  by 
tunnels,  that  you  may  go  to  balls  at  Rome  or  hells  at 
Monaco.  Here  is  another  manner  of  journey,  another 
goal  for  it,  appointed  for  your  little  king.  At  twelve, 
he  was  already  the  best  hunter  among  the  Saxon 
youths.  Be  sure  he  could  sit  his  horse  at  five.  Fancy 
the  child,  with  his  keen  genius,  and  holy  heart,  riding 
with  his  Saxon  chiefs  beside  him,  by  the  Alpine  flow- 
ers under  Velan  or  Sempione,  and  down  among  the 
olives  to  Pavia,  to  Perugia,  to  Rome ;  there,  like  the 
little  fabled  Virgin,  ascending  the  Temple  steps,  and 
consecrated  to  be  King  of  England  by  the  great  Leo, 
Leo  of  the  Leonine  city,  the  saviour  of  Rome  from 
the  Saracen. 

Two  years  afterwards,  he  rode  again  to  Rome 
beside  his  father ;  the  West  Saxon  king  bringing 
presents  to  the  Pope,  a  crown  of  pure  gold  weighing 
four  pounds,  a  sword  adorned  with  pure  gold,  two 
golden  images,*  four  Saxon  silver  dishes ;  and  giving 
a  gift  of  gold  to  all  the  Roman  clergy  and  nobles,t 
and  of  silver  to  the  people. 

No    idle  sacrifices  or  symbols,    these  gifts   of  cour- 

*  Turner,  Book  IV.,— not  a  vestige  of  hint  from  the  stupid  Englishman,  what 
the  Pope  wanted  with  crown,  sword,  or  image !  My  own  guess  would  be,  that 
it  meant  an  offering  of  the  entire  household  strength,  in  war  and  peace,  of  the 
Sajion  nation,— their  cro-wn,  their  sword,  their  household  gods,  Irminsul  and 
Irminsula,  their  feasting,  and  their  robes. 

t  Again,  what  does  this  mean  ?  Gifts  of  honour  to  the  Pope's  immediate 
attendants— silver  to  all  Rome?  Does  the  modern  reader  think  this  is  buying 
little  Alfred's  consecration  too  dear,  or  that  Leo  is  selling  the  Holy  Ghost  ? 


112  The  Pleasures  of  Fancy. 

tesy!  The  Saxon  King  rebuilt  on  the  highest  hill 
that  is  bathed  by  Tiber,  the  Saxon  street  and  school, 
the  Borgo,*  of  whose  miraculously  arrested  burning 
Raphael's  fresco  preserves  the  story  to  this  day.  And 
further  he  obtained  from  Leo  the  liberty  of  all  Saxon 
men  from  bonds  in  penance  ; — a  first  phase  this  of 
Magna  Charta,  obtained  more  honourably,  from  a 
more  honourable  person,  than  that  document,  by 
which  Englishmen  of  this  day,  suppose  they  live, 
move,  and  have  being. 

How  far  into  Alfred's  soul,  at  seven  years  old,  sank 
any  true  image  of  what  Rome  was,  and  had  been ; 
of  what  her  Lion  Lord  was,  who  had  saved  her  from 
the  Saracen,  and  her  Lion  Lord  had  been,  who  had 
saved  her  from  the  Hun ;  and  what  this  Spiritual 
Dominion  was,  and  was  to  be,  which  could  make  and 
unmake  kings,  and  save  nations,  and  put  armies  to 
flight ;  I  leave  those  to  say,  who  have  learned  to  rever- 
ence childhood.  This,  at  least,  is  sure,  that  the  days 
of  Alfred  were  bound  each  to  each,  not  only  by  their 
natural  piety,  but  by  the  actual  presence  and  appeal 
to  his  heart,  of  all  that  was  then  in  the  world  most 
noble,  beautiful,  and  strong  against  Death. 

In  this  living  Book  of  God  he  had  learned  to  read, 

*  "  Quae  in  eorum  lin^a  Burgus  dicitur, — the  place  where  it  was  situated 
was  calHd  the  Saxon  street,  Saxonum  vicum  "  (Anastasius,  quoted  by  Turner). 
There  seems  to  me  some  evidence  in  the  scattered  passages  I  have  not  time 
to  collate,  that  at  this  time  the  Saxon  Burg,  or  tower,  of  a  village,  included  the 
idea  of  ks  school. 


Ccetir  de  Lio7i  to  Elizabeth.  113 

thus  early;  and  with  perhaps  nobler  ambiticKi  than 
of  getting  the  prize  of  a  gilded  psalm-book  at  his 
mother's  knee,  as  you  are  commonly  told  of  him. 
What  sort  of  psalm-book  it  was,  however,  you  may 
see  from  this  leaf  in  my  hand.  For,  as  his  father 
and  he  returned  from  Rome  that  year,  they  stayed 
again  at  the  Court  of  Charlemagne's  grandson,  whose 
daughter,  the  Princess  Judith,  Ethelwolf  was  wooing 
for  Queen  of  England,  (not  queen-consort,  merely,  but 
crowned  queen,  of  authority  equal  to  his  own.)  From 
whom  Alfred  was  like  enough  to  have  had  a  reading 
lesson  or  two  out  of  her  father's  Bible ;  and  like 
enough,  the  little  prince,  to  have  stayed  her  hand  at 
this  bright  leaf  of  it,  the  Lion-leaf,  bearing  the  symbol 
of  the  Lion  of  the  tribe  of  Judah. 

You  cannot,  of  course,  see  anything  but  the  glit- 
tering from  where  you  sit ;  nor  even  if  you  afterwards 
look  at  it  near,  will  you  find  a  figure  the  least  admi- 
rable or  impressive  to  you.  It  is  not  like  Landseer's 
Lions  in  Trafalgar  Square  ;  nor  like  Tenniel's  in 
'  Punch '  ;  still  less  like  the  real  ones  in  Regent's 
Park.  Neither  do  I  show  it  you  as  admirable  in  any 
respect  of  art,  other  than  that  of  skilfullest  illumina- 
tion. I  show  it  you,  as  the  most  interesting  Gothic 
type  of  the  imagination  of  Lion ;  which,  after  the 
Roman  Eagle,  possessed  the  minds  of  all  European 
warriors ;  until,  as  they  themselves  grew  selfish  and 
cruel,  the   symbols  which   at    first  meant   heaven-sent 


114  The  Pleastires  of  Fancy. 

victory,  or  the  strength  and  presence  of  some  Divine 
spirit,  became  to  them  only  the  signs  of  their  own 
pride  or  rage  :  the  victor  raven  of  Corvus  sinks  into 
the  shamed  falcon  of  Marmion,  and  the  lion-hearted- 
ness  which  gave  the  glory  and  the  peace  of  the  gods 
to  Leonidas,  casts  the  glory  and  the  might  of  king- 
hood  to  the  dust  before  Chalus.* 

That  death,  6th  April,  1199,  ended  the  advance  of 
England  begun  by  Alfred,  under  the  pure  law  of  Re- 
ligious Imagination.  She  began,  already,  in  the  thir- 
teenth century,  to  be  decoratively,  instead  of  vitally, 
religious.  The  history  of  the  Religious  Imagination 
expressed  between  Alfred's  time  and  that  of  Coeur  de 
Lion,  in  this  symbol  of  the  Lion  only,  has  material  in 
it  rather  for  all  my  seven  lectures  than  for  the  clos- 
ing section  of  one ;  but  I  must  briefly  specify  to  you 
the  main  sections  of  it.  I  will  keep  clear  of  my  fa- 
vourite number  seven,  and  ask  you  to  recollect  the 
meaning  of  only  Five,  Mythic  Lions. 

First  of  all,  in  Greek  art,  remember  to  keep  your- 
selves clear  about  the  difference  between  the  Lion 
and  the  Gorgon. 

The  Gorgon  is  the  power  of  evil  in  heaven,  con- 
quered by  Athena,  and  thenceforward  becoming  her 
aegis,  when  she  is  herself  the  inflictor  of  evil  Her 
helmet  is  then  the  helmet  of  Orcus. 

*  '  Fors  Clavigera,  March,  1871,  p.  19.  Yet  read  the  preceding  pages,  and 
learn  the  truth  of  the  lion  heart,  while  you  mourn  its  pride.  Note  especially 
his  absolute  law  against  usury. 


Cosier  de  Lion  to  Elizabeth,  1 1 5 

But  the  Lion  is  the  power  of  death  on  earth,  con- 
quered by  Heracles,  and  becoming  thenceforward  both 
his  helmet  and  agis.  All  ordinary  architectural  lion 
sculpture  is  derived  from  the  Heraclean. 

Then  the  Christian  Lions  are,  first,  the  Lion  of  the 
Tribe  of  Judah — Christ  Himself  as  Captain  and  Judge: 
"  He  shall  rule  the  nations  with  a  rod  of  iron,"  (the 
opposite  power  of  His  adversary,  is  rarely  intended 
in  sculpture  unless  in  association  with  the  serpent 
— "  inculcabis  supra  leonem  et  aspidem");  secondly, 
the  Lion  of  St.  Mark,  the  power  of  the  Gospel  going 
out  to  conquest ;  thirdly,  the  Lion  of  St.  Jerome,  the 
wrath  of  the  brute  creation  changed  into  love  by  the 
kindness  of  man  ;  and,  fourthly,  the  Lion  of  the  Zo- 
diac, which  is  the  Lion  of  Egypt  and  of  the  Lombardic 
pillar-supports  in  Italy ;  these  four,  if  you  remember, 
with  the  Nemean  Greek  one,  five  altogether,  will  give 
you,  broadly,  interpretation  of  nearly  all  Lion  symbol- 
ism in  great  art.  How  they  degenerate  into  the 
British  door  knocker,  I  leave  you  to  determine  for 
yourselves,  with  such  assistances  as  I  may  be  able  to 
suggest  to  you  in  my  next  lecture;  but,  as  the  gro- 
tesqueness  of  human  history  plans  it,  there  is  actually 
a  connection  between  that  last  degradation  of  the 
Leonine  symbol,  and  its  first  and  noblest  signifi- 
cance. 

You  see  there  are  letters  round  this  golden  Lion 
of  Alfred's  spelling-book,  which  his  princess  friend  was 


ii6  The  Pleasures  of  Fancy. 

likely  enough  to  spell  for  him.      They  are  two  Latin 

hexameters : — 

Hie  Leo,  surgendo,  portas  confregit  Averni 
Qui  nunquam  dormit,  nusquam  dormitat,  in  sevum. 
(This  Lion,  rising,  burst  the  gates  of  Death  : 
This,  who  sleeps  not,  nor  shall  sleep,  for  ever.) 

Now  here  is  the  Christian  change  of  the  Heraclean 
conquest  of  Death  into  Christ's  Resurrection.  Sam- 
son's bearing  away  the  gates  of  Gaza  is  another  like 
symbol,  and  to  the  mind  of  Alfred,  taught,  whether 
by  the  Pope  Leo  for  his  schoolmaster,  or  by  the  great- 
granddaughter  of  Charlemagne  for  his  schoolmistress, 
it  represented,  as  it  did  to  all  the  intelligence  of 
Christendom,  Christ  in  His  own  first  and  last,  Alpha 
and  Omega,  description  of  Himself, — 

"  I  am  He  that  liveth  and  was  dead,  and  behold  I 
am  alive  for  evermore,  and  ]iave  the  keys  of  Hell  and 
of  Death."  And  in  His  servant  St.  John's  description 
of  Him — 

"  Who  is  the  Faithful  Witness  and  the  First-begotten 
of  the  dead,  and  the  Prince  of  the  kings  of  the  earth." 

All  this  assuredly,  so  far  as  the  young  child,  conse- 
crated like  David,  the  youngest  of  his  brethren,  con- 
ceived his  own  new  life  in  Earth  and  Heaven,- -he 
understood  already  in  the  Lion  symbol.  But  of  all 
this   I  had  no  thought*  when   I  chose  the    prayer  of 

*  The  reference  to  the  Bible  of  Charles  le  Chauve  was  added  to  my  second 
lecture  (j  age  54),  in  correcting  the  press,  mistakenly  put  into  the  text  instead 
of  the  notes. 


Coeur  de  Lion  to  Elizabeth.  1 1 7 

Alfred  as  the  type  of  the  Religion  of  his  era,  in  its 
dwelling,  not  on  the  deliverance  from  the  punishment 
ot  sin,  but  from  the  poisonous  sleep  and  death  of  it. 
Will  you  ever  learn  that  prayer  again, — youths  who 
are  to  be  priests,  and  knights,  and  kings  of  England, 
in  these  the  latter  days?  when  the  gospel  of  Eternal 
Death  is  preached  here  in  Oxford  to  you  for  the 
Pride  of  Truth?  and  "the  mountain  of  the  Lord's 
House"  has  become  a  Golgotha,  and  the  "new  song 
before  the  throne  "  sunk  into  the  rolling  thunder  of 
the  death  rattle  of  the  Nations,  crying,  "  O  Christ, 
where  is  Thy  Victory !  " 

NOTES. 

1.  The  Five  Christmas  Days.  (These  were  dran-n  out  on 
a  large  and   conspicuous  diagram.) 

These  days,  as  it  happens,  sum  up  the  History  of  their 
Five  Centuries, 

Christmas  Day,      496.     Clovis  baptized. 

"  "  800.     Charlemange  crowned. 

"  "        1 04 1.     Vow    of    the    Count    of 

Aversa  (Page  80). 
"  "        1066.     The  Conqueror  crowned. 

"  "        1 1 30.     Roger  II.  crowned  King 

of  the  Two  SiciHes. 

2.  For  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  two  pictures  were 
shown  and  commented  on — the  two  most  perfect  pictures  in 
the  world. 


1 1 8  The  Pleasures  of  Fancy. 

(i)  A  small  piece  from  Tintoret's  Paradiso  in  the  Ducal 
Palace,  representing  the  group  of  St.  Ambrose,  St.  Jerome, 
St.  Gregory,  St.  Augustine,  and  behind  St.  Augustine  his 
mother  watching  him,  her  chief  joy  even  in  Paradise. 

(2)  The  Arundel  Society's  reproduction  of  the  Altar- 
piece  by  Giorgione  in  his  native  hamlet  of  Castel  Franco. 
The  Arundel  Society  has  done  more  for  us  than  we  have 
any  notion   of. 


V 


DA 
uo 

P-8 


THE  LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


STACK  COLLECTION 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


10j;i-5,'65(F4458s4)476D 


